Green, red, blue—three colours dominate the images
By Rem Koolhaas. Excerpt from the book ' Cities of the World'
It is impossible to read and look at this book without feeling profound awe and intense envy. Awe of a small team of editors, engravers and eyewitnesses and their ability to synthesize an incredible amount of knowledge and information concerning more than 450 cities, including their plans, history, situation, raison d'être, landmarks and customs, to create a comprehensive portrait of the world in just six volumes.
Based on a reduced generic representation of house, alley, street, square, church, palace and fortification, every portrait effortlessly reveals the unique qualities of each of these settlements with an artless efficiency that has become unthinkable. Half a millennium later, our cities have become monstrous: too endless to represent, endlessly complicated, largely dysfunctional. Yet, we cling to Braun's confident mottos on the frontispiece: "community, security, affluence, harmony…"
Three colours dominate the images: green—the land; red—the city; and blue—the water, with its promise of interconnectedness. Half of the cities are landlocked—often in idyllic locations; the other half open up to the sea. Perhaps 1576 is a transition point from a feudal/religious order to a more mercantile, market-driven modernity. The stability of the landlocked versus the liquidity of the coastal cities: an ominous foreboding of the future chaos the centrifugal forces of globalization will unleash. Five hundred years later, red would be the only colour left. As in the current moment, the book maintains a constant awareness of the impact of religion on urban culture: not only does the Reformation challenge previous harmony, but in Damascus, for instance, Christian myth cohabits with Islamic practice in a still fertile communication. But Braun is worried, deeply aware that multiple values can tear cities apart.
Finally, the accumulated insight and knowledge that these volumes represent stand in stark contrast to the current virtual ubiquity of information: our navigation systems make the world tangible and incredibly concrete; they enable us not to know and to forget.
It is impossible to read and look at this book without feeling profound awe and intense envy. Awe of a small team of editors, engravers and eyewitnesses and their ability to synthesize an incredible amount of knowledge and information concerning more than 450 cities, including their plans, history, situation, raison d'être, landmarks and customs, to create a comprehensive portrait of the world in just six volumes.
Based on a reduced generic representation of house, alley, street, square, church, palace and fortification, every portrait effortlessly reveals the unique qualities of each of these settlements with an artless efficiency that has become unthinkable. Half a millennium later, our cities have become monstrous: too endless to represent, endlessly complicated, largely dysfunctional. Yet, we cling to Braun's confident mottos on the frontispiece: "community, security, affluence, harmony…"
Three colours dominate the images: green—the land; red—the city; and blue—the water, with its promise of interconnectedness. Half of the cities are landlocked—often in idyllic locations; the other half open up to the sea. Perhaps 1576 is a transition point from a feudal/religious order to a more mercantile, market-driven modernity. The stability of the landlocked versus the liquidity of the coastal cities: an ominous foreboding of the future chaos the centrifugal forces of globalization will unleash. Five hundred years later, red would be the only colour left. As in the current moment, the book maintains a constant awareness of the impact of religion on urban culture: not only does the Reformation challenge previous harmony, but in Damascus, for instance, Christian myth cohabits with Islamic practice in a still fertile communication. But Braun is worried, deeply aware that multiple values can tear cities apart.
Finally, the accumulated insight and knowledge that these volumes represent stand in stark contrast to the current virtual ubiquity of information: our navigation systems make the world tangible and incredibly concrete; they enable us not to know and to forget.
Braun/Hogenberg, Cities of the World
Hardcover, 29 x 42 cm (11.4 x 16.5 in.), 520 pages
$ 200.00
$ 200.00
The complete reprint of all 363 color plates from Braun and Hogenberg's survey of town maps, city views, and plans of Europe, Africa, Asia and Central America. First published in Cologne 1572-1617. Printed from a rare and superbly preserved original set of six volumes, belonging to the Historische Museum in Frankfurt
The fire at the Venetian Doge's palace in 1577