Maps by City Prints. Click on the images to see the locations.

Darkened Cities by Thierry Cohen imagines the starry skies we’d see in urban areas if we turned off all the lights.

About the project:

Before these pictures can exist, the sky from one place has to be superimposed upon cityscape from another. It is impossible to see this detail in the night sky above a city. Atmospheric and light pollution combine to make looking into the urban sky like looking past bright headlights while driving.

By travelling to places free from light pollution but situated on precisely the same latitude as his cities, Cohen obtains skies which, as the world rotates about its axis, are the very ones visible above the cities a few hours earlier or later. To find the right level of atmospheric clarity, Cohen has to go into the wild places of the earth, the Atacama, the Mojave, the western Sahara.

As more and more of the world’s population becomes urban, and as we lose our connection with the natural world, so it becomes plain that damage is caused by light pollution. There may be connections to certain cancers, and there are psychological burdens of permanent day. The ‘city that never sleeps’ is made up of millions of individuals breaking natural cycles of work and repose. Lose sight of the sky, and you become a rat in a lab.

Cohen hasn’t simply shown us the skies that we’re missing. His cities look dead under the fireworks display above No lights in the windows, no tracers of traffic. They are (in fact) photographed in daylight, when lights shine out less brightly. In urban mythology the city teems with energy and illumines everything around it. Cohen’s pictures are crafted to say the opposite. These are cold cities, cut off from the seemingly infinite energies above.

Wired’s Strange, Beautiful and Unexpected: Planned Cities Seen From Space is a fascinating gallery full of images and information about some of the world’s biggest urban planning projects. 

The Happy City Birds project was started by Thomas Winther to kill two birds with one stone solve two major urban problems: dwindling habitats for birds and an abundance of trash. He began building birdhouses out of recycled materials and placing them in cities around Denmark. He has since spread his project worldwide by offering his birdhouses to bird lovers everywhere.

Beneath every city there is a complex system of tunnels that remain a mystery to the majority of inhabitants above. Many of us are curious about what’s down there, but few are willing to find out for themselves. Thank goodness for people like photographer Steve Duncan who’s willing to go where most wouldn’t dare. Click on the images to see which cities these tunnels wind below.

Vegetation overtakes an abandoned building complex in the Jhongjheng District of Badouzi, Taiwan. Photos by Flickr user Cock_a_doodle_do. 

These aerial photos of urban sprawl by Christoph Gielen tell a much bigger story.

Gielen on his work:

The photographic aerial studies in Ciphers reveal the hidden geometries of sprawl growth that become apparent only when seen from far above the ground. These top-view abstractions show striking parallels between layouts and shapes of otherwise unrelated developments – structures as varied in function as prisons and retirement communities. But all of them clearly demonstrate sprawl as a car dependent phenomenon and as a way of life. These pictures are intended to invoke an era of carefree risk-taking, of “bigger is better,” when investing in home ownership and commercial real estate were still standard practices and neither distance from workplace or city centers nor gasoline prices much mattered in determining the geographic locations of new constructions.

The goal of this work is to connect art with environmental politics and to trigger a discussion about contemporary building trends by looking closely at the ramifications of sprawl – to ask: what is sustainable planning? – particularly at this point in time, when a growing need for new housing is prevalent across the globe. To further explore these environmental topics within the context of other disciplines, Ciphers was paired with the thoughts of futurist Geoff Manaugh, cultural philosopher Johan Frederik Hartle, urban redevelopment expert Galina Tachieva, and architect Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss.

Metropolis textiles by Claesson Koivisto Rune

About:

The Swedish architecture and design studio got the inspiration to create such an original textile pattern from travelling. By flying above cities when approaching any airport the urban fabric becomes visible and omnipresent. They got the maps of cities to which they had travelled and started choosing the most interesting parts.

Images from the book The Ruins of Detroit City by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

About the book:

Over the past generation Detroit has suffered economically worse than any other of the major American cities and its rampant urban decay is now glaringly apparent during this current recession. Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre documented this disintegration, showcasing structures that were formerly a source of civic pride, and which now stand as monuments to the city’s fall from grace.

“Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension. The state of ruin is temporary by nature, the volatile result of the end of an era and the fall of empires. This fragility, the time elapsed but even so running fast, lead us to watch them one very last time: being dismayed, or admiring, wondering about the permanence of things. Photography appeared to us as a modest way to keep a little bit of this ephemeral state.”

Blinking City by design duo Instant Hutong (Marcella Campa & Stefano Avesani) 

About the project:

Blinking City is a project investigating the inadequacy of traditional maps for city environments characterized by fast pace transformation and urban growth. As soon as the map is done, the city it describes has already gone. We transferred one of the Blinking City pattern, based on a collage of several Hutong neighbourhoods of Beijing, onto a wall of a dilapidated courtyard house in Xianyukou district, located in the core of the city.

In case you’ve ever wondered what goes on up there, aerial photographer Alex MacLean has assembled his book Up On the Roof: New York’s Hidden Skyline Spaces.

Agriculture 2.0 is a design by Appareil for urban vertical farming. Although it’s based on ancient practices, it’s a concept for the future.

These amazing light paintings by TigTab can take hours to complete, requiring many flashes from custom built light boxes and one very long exposure to capture the final result.

About the work:

I find beauty in decay — those abandoned and forgotten places all around us. By bringing light into the darkness of each space, it fills that space for a moment in time, and highlights both their beauty and impermanence.

Xaime Aneiros photographed his entire Tierra series on one flight from Santiago de Compostela to Barcelona.

CODES - Imaginary maps of nonexistent cities by Frederico Cortese

Cortese on his work:

When we consider a road map or a map of the territory we note that they contain different information that are represented by different means, according to the purpose for which they were created: each time we find colors, symbols and words that recall a precise meaning. What happens if I take these techniques of representation, these symbols, and take off the scope for which they were created and mingle them with each other? Will it be for the reader a text in a foreign language, that is meaningless, or through the world of associations and references that each of us possesses, will generate a new language and associate to those images a new meaning?

In these drawings, the invention of the map of a city is only a pretext. Gradually, by changing the shapes, colors and the hierarchy of associations between the various elements I explore the possibilities of changing this language increasingly moving away from its original meaning.