Portrait of a City

Every great city has a soul — and a visual history that no single photograph can contain. TASCHEN‘s Portrait of a City series brings together hundreds of meticulously researched images for each title, tracing the full arc of a city's life through the lens of the photographers, artists, and chroniclers who knew it best.

The series spans the world's most iconic metropolises. Berlin charts the turbulent transformation of a city that has reinvented itself time and again — from imperial capital to divided city, from Cold War symbol to reunified cultural powerhouse. Paris, the city of light, is explored through images reaching back to the earliest days of photography, from the pioneering work of Louis Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot to the chic streets and iconic architecture that have defined the French capital for centuries. Rome, the Eternal City, unfolds across millennia of history — from the grandeur of the ancient Forum to the cinematic streetscapes of the 20th century. London, from the Victorian docks to the swinging sixties and beyond, is captured in all its layered, contradictory magnificence. New York — Manhattan skylines, Brooklyn bridges, Harlem jazz clubs, and the restless energy of a city that never stands still. San Francisco, from the Gold Rush to the Golden Gate, fog-draped hills and the counterculture revolution. Los Angeles, a city built on dreams, captured through the lens of Hollywood glamour, desert light, and the open freeway. And Vienna, the imperial city on the Danube, steeped in fin-de-siècle elegance and the legacy of a lost empire.

Richly illustrated, in large XL format and masterfully researched — an outstanding gift for travellers, photographers, historians, and anyone who has ever lost their heart to a great city.