Tag: invisible-cities | ArchDaily

Unearthing the Ground: Architecture and the Politics of the Subterranean

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Beneath the visible surface of cities lies an invisible architecture. Subways, tunnels, water systems, data cables, and bunkers form a dense network that sustains urban life while remaining largely unseen. The ground beneath our feet is not a void but a complex territory that holds the infrastructures, memories, and anxieties of our age. In recent years, as land becomes scarce and climate pressures intensify, architects and urbanists have turned their gaze downward, rediscovering the subterranean as both a physical and conceptual frontier. To design underground is to engage with the unseen mechanisms that shape the world above.

What Can Metaverse Planners Learn from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities

Chloe Sun — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 03:30:00 +0000

We are still at the dawn of the Metaverse, the next wave of the Internet. The current “mainstream” Metaverse platforms serve as experimental containers to host the wildest dreams of virtual worlds where we are supposed to unleash the imagination. However, from a spatial design perspective, they have so far been lame and ordinary. Without the constraints in the physical world, how do we draft the urban blueprints in the metaverse? I believe metaverse planners can find inspiration from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, in which he revealed a poetic and mathematical approach to “urban planning” in the imaginary worlds.

Intricate Illustrations of Italo Calvino's 'Invisible Cities'

Niall Patrick Walsh — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 09:00:00 +0000

Lima-based architect Karina Puente has created a new series in her personal project: to illustrate each and every "invisible" city from Italo Calvino's 1972 novel. Her collection, which ArchDaily published in 2016, and again in 2017, consists of mixed media collages, drawn mainly using ink on paper, brings together a sequence of imagined places – each referencing a city imagined in the book.

BDA Prize 2019: INVISIBLE C'VILLE

Rene Submissions — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 06:01:00 +0000

The BDA Prize, an annual design and ideas competition, exists to generate forward-looking ideas to better our community through design and dialogue.

The 2019 theme, INVISIBLE C’VILLE, calls for imaginative and provocative works on paper that distill and describe a generally overlooked -- yet essential -- quality, system, spatial practice, experience or story that characterizes Charlottesville.

The goal of INVISIBLE C’VILLE is to create a kaleidoscopic view of our community. “Real” Charlottesville emerges from individual truths overlaid, overlapped, uncovered, and expressed. We are looking for imaginative and provocative work, executed with clarity and conviction.

Submissions should be single, original images on paper

Three Principles of Architecture as Revealed by Italo Calvino's 'Invisible Cities'

Osman Bari — Sat, 15 Jul 2017 08:00:00 +0000

Italo Calvino's 1972 novel 'Invisible Cities' reveals much about the idea of architecture and urbanism, three of which have to do with our current visual culture, architecture's dependance on landscape, and the timelessness of cities.

Italo Calvino's 'Invisible Cities', Illustrated (Again)

AD Editorial Team — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 04:00:00 +0000

Lima-based architect Karina Puente has a personal project: to illustrate each and every "invisible" city from Italo Calvino's 1972 novel. Her initial collection, which ArchDaily published in 2016, traced Cities and Memories. This latest series of mixed media collages, drawn mainly using ink on paper, brings together another sequence of imagined places – each referencing a city imagined in the book.

Italo Calvino's 'Invisible Cities', Illustrated

James Taylor-Foster — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 04:00:00 +0000

Lima-based architect Karina Puente has a personal project: to illustrate each and every "invisible" city from Italo Calvino's 1972 novel. The book, which imagines imaginary conversations between the (real-life) Venetian explorer Marco Polo and the aged Mongol ruler Kublai Khan has been instrumental in framing approaches to urban discourse and the form of the city. According to Puente, who has shared six drawings with ArchDaily, "each illustration has a conceptual process, some of which take more time than others." Usually "I research, think, and ideate over each city for three weeks before making sketches." The final drawings and cut-outs take around a week to produce.