Invisible City
A novel by Italian author Italo Calvino, Invisible Cites explores imagination through the descriptions of cities by an explorer, Marco Polo. The book consists of brief prose poems describing 55 fictitious cities, many of which can be read as meditations on culture, time, memory, and the general nature of human experience. The following collage is a conceptual representation of the city Octavia, the spider-web city.
Role
Conceptual Designer
Time
2 Weeks
Team of One
Alex Wang
Process
Handson Craft
Lifted City
"There is a precipice between two steep mountains: the city is over the void, bound to the two crests with ropes and chains and catwalks..."
Precarious Cantilever
"Suspended over the abyss, the life of Octavia's inhabitants is less uncertain than in other cities. They know the net will only last so long."
Spatially-Linked Net
"This is the foundation of the city: a net which serves as passage and as support"
Lives on Hangers
"All the rest, instead of rising up, is hung below: rope ladders, hammocks, houses made like sacks, clothes hangers, terraces like gondolas, skins of water, gas jets, spits, baskets on strings, dumb-waiters, showers, trapezes and rings for children's games, cable cars, chandeliers, pots with trailing plants."
First Glimpse
You walk on the little wooden ties, careful not to set your foot in the open spaces, or you cling to the hempen strands. Below there is nothing for hundreds and hundreds of feet: a few clouds glide past; farther down you can glimpse the chasm's bed.