Invisible Cities

Italo Calvino (1923-1985) The author of Invisible Cities

This term in ARCH1002 Design Studies studio, we are remarking the relationships between fiction and architectural environment. We discuss how the fiction helps to develop its architecture. You are asked to read Invisible Cities and develop architectural ideas on a city of your choice from the book. While doing so, you might find it interesting to examine the contrary phenomenon: Sometimes a writer’s description of an existing building or a place can be so complete and evocative that the architectural site can seem like another character. This way of thinking might lead you to new ideas on your journey to develop the interpretations between literature and architecture. Your challenge is to design a city architecturally, which is described verbally in Calvino’s book. Starting with some certain questions can be suggested in this case: - What is a city? - When a piece of land, or a settlement area becomes “city”? - How many different city types are there, do you think, and what kind of a city is yours? These questions may help you to have a more sufficient definition of city concept, before dealing with a city design. Those who have made a research about Kevin Lynch’s work will handle this challenge easier. Thereafter, to have a strong setup and fiction behind your city, try to answer these questions: - In which time period has your city existed? (Ancient, contemporary, future, a long time ago in a far away galaxy etc.) - Who are the inhabitants? - Where they are living? - What are the geographic/topographic/atmospheric/climatic characteristics of their land? - What is a regular day like in their city? - How do they feel about their city?