The City of Imagination

Book excerpt: It is in the wilderness of cities rather than in nature that the imagination of these landscape drawings comes to life. Without any heroic emphasis, these drawings result from the observation of traces, evident or discreet, in the urban landscape, and the process to collect and memorize traces is the way to consider memory as a primary medium for creativity. This selected collection of over 150 drawings, thought and imagined over many years, delineates a personal city experience, without any intention of building a new city theory. No single drawing in this book is a representation of cities in-situ; all of them are interpretations, translations, and combinations of traces collected and selected while teaching, working, meeting cultures, and eating food in many different cities around the world. These drawings are a different form of communication than the beautiful renderings produced in endless numbers.