Cities in focus

The Windy City

2011-03-28T10:21:00.001+11:00

"Seagulls can always be seen flying around the rampart walls of Essaouira, riding the powerful north-easterly trade winds as the waves crash over the rocks below. This wind is a part of the town's personality, flowing through the streets, and also attracts a crowd of eager windsurfers and kiteboarders." Barry Vera, Feast Bazaar

Wijnhaven, Dordrecht, Holland [HDR]

2010-01-18T23:42:00.002+11:00

Wijnhaven, Dordrecht, Holland [HDR]
Originally uploaded by toffiloff

recapturing time

2009-05-30T16:58:00.002+10:00

recapturing time
Originally uploaded by i.Anton

Journal during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle

2009-05-25T11:04:00.000+10:00

Following a pathway, I entered a noble forest, and from a height of five or six hundred feet, one of those splendid views was presented, which are so common on this side of Rio. At this elevation, the landscape attains its most brilliant tint; and every form, every shade, so completely surpasses in magnificence all that the European has ever beheld in his own country, that he knows not how to express his feelings. The general effect frequently recalled to my mind the gayest scenery of the Opera House or the great theaters.

- Charles Darwin, Journal during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle (1832-36)

Delight in Yokohama

2009-05-25T10:57:00.001+10:00

In Yokohama, I went to the hundred steps, at the top of which lives a Japanese belle, Oyuchisan, who is the theme for artist and pet, and the admiration of tourists. One of the pleasant events of my stay was the luncheon given for me on the Omaha, the American war vessel lying at Yokohama. I took several drives, enjoying the novelty of having a Japanese running by the horses' heads all the while. I ate rice and eel. I visited the curio shops, one of which is built in imitation of a Japanese house, and was charmed with the exquisite art I saw therein; in short, I found nothing but what delighted the finer senses while in Japan.

- Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, Nellie Bly's Book (1890)

Letter to his Mother

2009-05-25T10:52:00.002+10:00

If any person wants to be happy I should advise the Parc. You sit drinking iced drinks and smoking penny cigars under great old trees. The band place, covered walks, etc., are all lit up. And you can't fancy how beautiful was the contrast of the great masses of lamp-lit foliage and the dark sapphire night sky, with just one blue star set overhead in the middle of the largest patch. In the dark walks, too, there are crowds of people whose faces you cannot see, and here and there a colossal white statue at the corner of an alley that gives the place a nice artificial, eighteenth-century sentiment. There was a good deal of summer lightning blinking overhead, and the black avenues and white statues leap out every minute into short lived distinctness.

- Robert Louis Stevenson, Letter to his Mother (1872)

Round the World in Any Number of Days

2009-05-25T10:48:00.002+10:00

Sometimes in dreams the fancy creates a composite, colored photograph of a town, a place, or a house. The dreamer notices the different of the component parts, but accepts the whole as correct... So it was to a certain degree with my impression of Melbourne. I saw it as a huge city in the Midlands of England, or the Five Towns, but the buildings were more perpendicular, the streets more rectangular, all was larger and more symmetrical, and there was a multitude of tramcars.

But these large, tall, black, square buildings were set in a soft, tepid, luminous air: pearly pink and gray...unlike anything in modern Europe - a dreamlike contrast.

When the fancy creates a place it forgets the necessary changes in background: air, sky and light. This is true of dreams.....

- Maurice Baring, Round the World in Any Number of Days (1913)

Lady of the Avenues

2009-05-25T10:42:00.002+10:00

There is a bluff in the presidio, towards the end of Washington Boulevard; some call it the Washington Bluffs, others Rob Hill, but it really has no name. There, at the sweeping curve of the road, you will find one of the finest views of the Golden Gate and the Pacific to be had anywhere. I always come back to this place, borne by the waves of sun and water that extend far beyond the boundaries of the eye, and reminisce about times long gone, dreams unfulfilled, and visions yet to be explored. An ancient Chinese couplet haunts me here:

The moon in the water resembles
the moon in the sky;
The person in the heart is
the person in front of you.

The sea-and pine-scented air fills me with hope and the belief that all men and women are made better by a visit to this place. The dream of San Francisco is that humanity might live in harmony with nature but at the same time enjoy the benefits of civilization.

Call to yourself down through the centuries and see if it is not here that you will return. San Francisco isn't just a city, it is a jumping-off point to eternity. In an ocean of light, this is the place.

- Sean O'Reilly, Travelers' Tales San Francisco

Kashgar Sunday Market.

2009-05-16T21:19:00.002+10:00

Kashgar Sunday Market.
Originally uploaded by SimonInAsia

City of Enchantments

2009-05-13T15:19:00.003+10:00

We have been traveling for hours through a country filled with an immense energy - with the energy of silence. The enormous plain stretches out to the blue horizon's hound; it is brown as dust. it is grey and ashen, but with the changing hours the colours change. It is mauve and it is reseda , it is sage green and periwinkle blue; and set in the midst thereof, and fair as a star sapphire, and so old that age is non-existent, is the city. Time has no power upon her beauty, which was ordained before time was. The twilight of the ages is luminous upon her; she broods, aloof and fair, a place of enchantments. As Spain has no dew, so Spain has no dreams, but she has magic, and some of it is black magic; as Siena is a city of dreams, so Toledo is a city of enchantments, legendary and magical.
- Georgiana Goddard King, Heart of Spain

1890s Colour Antique Map PRAGUE WYSCHEHRAD NUSLE ZIZKOW

2009-05-12T15:58:00.002+10:00

1890s Colour Antique Map PRAGUE WYSCHEHRAD NUSLE ZIZKOW

We love and hate

2009-03-18T14:52:00.001+11:00

"We love the place we hate/We hate the place we love/We leave the place we hate/Then spend a lifetime trying to regain it." Director Terence Davies narrates for his film Of Time and the City

You'll understand when you get there

2009-03-18T14:32:00.002+11:00

"The energy of the place slams like a shock wave...Kathmandu is so overwhelming, so packed with images, that succinct summaries seem almost impossible - certainly inadequate. I'm tempted to say "You'll understand when you get there..." It's a dream. I've never seen anything like it."
- David Yeadon, The Black of Beyond : Travels to the Wild Places of the Earth

Roma moment

2009-01-21T09:26:00.003+11:00

A Roma sepultada en sus ruinas	To Rome Buried in Its Ruins
Buscas en Roma a Roma oh peregrino! y en Roma misma a Roma no la hallas: cadáver son las que ostentó murallas y tumba de sí proprio el Aventino. Yace donde reinaba el Palatino y limadas del tiempo, las medallas más se muestran destrozo a las batallas de las edades que Blasón Latino. Sólo el Tibre quedó, cuya corriente, si ciudad la regó, ya sepultura la llora con funesto son doliente. Oh Roma en tu grandeza, en tu hermosura, huyó lo que era firme y solamente lo fugitivo permanece y dura!	You seek Rome in Rome, o pilgrim! and in Rome itself you do not find Rome: the proud walls are a corpse and the Aventine Hill is its own tomb. Where the Palatine once held sway it now lies full length and, honed by time, medals show themselves to the battle of the ages more as damage than as the Latin Escutcheon. Only the Tiber remained, and its stream, if once it irrigated Rome as a city, now weeps for it as a supulchre, with a grim and grieving sound. Oh Rome, in your grandeur and beauty, that which was solid vanishes, and all that endures and lasts is the fleeting moment.

Quoted from baroque writer Francisco de Quevedo

The Windy City

2009-01-20T23:52:00.003+11:00

In Chicago you feel the pressure of infinite surrounding plains; it's a city that fills the land; even the lake, enclosing one side, allow no escape. From time to time, at the end of a long ride by tramway, train, or elevated railroad, the buildings thin out, and it seems that the city is finally going to expire. Then it springs up again, even more vigorously; you've merely reached an old border, with new neighbourhoods built beyond. And beyond that there's is yet another belt, and another farther on. But it's not only these exorbitant dimensions that give Chicago its density. Los Angeles is vast but porous. This town is made of a thick dough, without leavening. More than any city in the world, it reeks of humanity, and this is what makes its atmosphere so stilfing and tragic. Neither nature nor the past can penetrate it, but in the absence of the picturesque, it possesses a dark poetry.
-Simone De Beauvoir, America Day by Day

Look Closer

2009-01-20T10:42:00.004+11:00

"People rush through Athens on their way to the islands," he said, "and take in nothing but the Acropolis." Antonis recited the words of a shepherd he'd encountered while lost in the mountains: "A foreigner and a blind man are the same. They don't see what in front of them." And it's true - Athens has gotten a bad rap among travellers, for its traffic jams, overcrowded tourist sites, and seasonal air pollution. But there is another side to Athens, and those who focus only on the city's glorious past, Antonis says, are missing its seductive present: its sensual dry heat and sea light; its blue sky and bright flowers; the icy drinks, garlicky dips, and tangy cheeses served in cafes; the splashes of green and, everywhere, a citrusy smell; the startling hills that jut up heroically in the centre of town.
-Alan Brown, "Athens, Look Closer"

Palermo, Italy

2009-01-19T13:55:00.000+11:00

I suppose Palermo, the great bay of Palermo with its lofty promontories thrust out into the sea, so noble in outline and in mass, Monte Pellegrino on the west, and Monte Alfano on the east, the city set as it were in a natural amphitheatre between them on the shore of the blue jewel-like sea, its palaces and turrets and minarets seen against the dark background of far flung mountains, and surrounded by the riches of all wales, the Conca d'Oro, running up in an ever narrowing valley into the great bare hills, with its olive gardens, its orange and lemon groves, its fig trees and almonds, its palms and agraves and its infinite flowers: I suppose Palermo is one of the loveliest places in the world.
-Edward Hutton, Cities of Sicily (1926)

Trees in Sydney

2009-01-15T16:34:00.005+11:00

Sydney is so beautiful. The sparkling blue of the ageless harbour is framed by the verdant foliage of aged angophoras, she-oaks and Moreton Bay figs. On the other hand, they're blocking the view of the harbour and the houses overlooking it. This leads to outbreaks of midnight pruning. "Nature is amazing. It took this Moreton a century to grow. Pass the chainsaw. It'll take it a century to grow back. Imagine the price of this place then!" Jean Kittson is an Australian performer, writer and comedian in theatre and print, on radio and television. Quoted from Sydney Magazine (The Sydney Morning Herald)

Negative Space (Detroit, Michigan)

2008-08-26T22:55:00.002+10:00

Negative Space (Detroit, Michigan)
Originally uploaded by gregory lee

Two quotes of Kathmandu

2008-08-26T22:27:00.002+10:00

KATHMANDU
THERE ARE MANY THINGS ONE "SHOULD SEE" in this valley, but I secrecy resent being bossed by guidebook and am therefore a slipshod tourist. To me the little statue that one unexpectedly discovers down an alley way and impulsively responds to, means much more than the temple one had been instructed to admire for erudite and probably incomprehensible reasons.
-Dervla Murphy, The Waiting Land

KATHMANDU
THE ENERGY OF THE PLACE SLAMS LIKE A SHOCK wave... Kathmandu is so overwhelming, so packed with images, that succinct summaries seem almost impossible- certainly inadequate. I'm tempted to say "You'll understand when you get there...." It's a dream. I've never seen anything 1ike it.
-David Yeadon, The Back of Beyond

playing cards in hutongs - Beijing

2008-08-22T23:04:00.002+10:00

playing cards in hutongs - Beijing
Originally uploaded by © Maciej Dakowicz

quatro de cuba

2008-08-21T20:08:00.002+10:00

quatro de cuba
Originally uploaded by Mr. Mark

Arriving

2008-08-17T22:35:00.005+10:00

Originally uploaded by zeissizm

isfahan city (acrylic)

2008-08-16T11:42:00.003+10:00

isfahan city (acrylic)
Originally uploaded by designer and painter

Somewhere in Ginza

2008-08-16T11:22:00.009+10:00

Originally uploaded by v_spec

1968

2008-08-15T21:37:00.001+10:00

MADRE LOBO

[Ho Chi Minh] City*Mosaic

2008-08-15T21:21:00.004+10:00

1. hello, saigon!, 2. 今日も暑いよ／another hot morning, 3. no matter how hot, life goes on, 4. life on the fast lane, 5. シクロマン／cyclo man, 6. ode to man-power vehicles

Streets of Beijing on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

2008-08-15T00:38:00.001+10:00

Streets of Beijing on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

One World, One "Dream"

2008-08-14T00:12:00.001+10:00

one-world.jpg (JPEG Image, 765x492 pixels)

CITIES FFFFOUND - AMSTERDAM

2008-08-13T13:50:00.001+10:00

FFFFOUND!
Julie Jankowski GPS, Amsterdam 21.375" x 24" Oil on Linen

City Patterns

2008-07-30T23:12:00.005+10:00

Osaka's Shinsekai

2008-07-19T16:01:00.002+10:00

" Welcome to Osaka. Few major cities of the developed world could match Osaka for the overall unattractiveness of its city- scape, which consists mostly of a jumble of cube-like buildings and a web of expressways and cement-walled canals. There are few skyscrapers, even fewer museums and, other than Osaka Castle, almost no historical sites. Yet Osaka is my favorite city in Japan. Osaka is where the fun is: it has the best entertainment districts in Japan, the most lively youth neighborhood, the most charismatic geisha madams and the most colorful gangsters. It also has a monopoly on humor, to the extent that in order to succeed as a popular comedian it is almost obligatory to study in Osaka and speak the Osaka dialect. Osaka people are impatient and love to disobey rules; in that spirit, the best way to approach the city is to dispense with preliminaries and go straight to the heart of the mandala, which in Osaka's case is Tsutenkaku (the Tower Reaching to Heaven). Tsutenkaku is another of the towers which, like Tokyo Tower and Kyoto Tower, were built in every major city after World War II. Wartime bombing had almost completely obliterated Osaka's old downtown area, so the city redrew the streets in a huge burnt-out district, and built Tsutenkaku in the middle of it. The tower stands in the center of a rectangle covering about twenty square blocks called Shinsekai (New World), which is filled with restaurants, shops and theaters. Roads radiate from the arches under the tower like the avenues emanating from the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. However, all resemblance to Paris, or even the amusement districts of other Japanese cities, ends here. Once the mecca of laborers, such as the farmers of Iya who flooded the cities in the decades after the war, Shinsekai has become a slum. In clean, organized and law-abiding modem Japan, this is an exceptional phenomenon. Most people visiting Shinsekai enter via Janjan Yokocho, an arcade stretching from Imamiya Station into the district's inte- rior. The minute you get out of the train station, you realize that you are in another country: drunks and homeless people stagger by, and young men are more likely to be wearing wide coolie pants and boots than the latest fashions from Tokyo's trendy Harajuku area. You pass a street market where you can buy second-hand underwear or a single shoe. Janjan Yokocho is dark and dingy - you see the occasional rat scurrying across from one building to another - but it is crowded with people. They are . coming to eat at the kushikatsu restaurants lining the street, which feature cheap meals of pork, chicken, onions and eggs, deep-fried on wooden skewers and washed down with plenty of beer and shochu (vodka made from rice). Interspersed among the kushikatsu restaurants are shogi halls, where people sit in pairs playing Japanese chess, watched through open latticed windows by knots of people gathered on the street outside.
ALEX KERR, Lost Japan

[Zhenyuan]City*mosaic

2008-06-25T23:06:00.004+10:00

1. Morning mist - Zhenyuan Town, Guizhou Province, China, 2. Morning mist - Zhenyuan Town, Guizhou Province, China, 3. Through Carved Lattice Shutters, 4. Morning mist - Zhenyuan Town, Guizhou Province, China

Empire of Signs

2008-06-25T21:58:00.002+10:00

This city (Kyoto) can only be known only by an activity of an ethnographic kind: you must orient yourself in it not by book, by address, but by walking, by sight, by habit, by experience; here every discovery is intense and fragile, it can be repeated or recovered only by memory of the trace it has left in you: to visit a place for the first time is thereby to begin to write it: the address not being written, it must establish its own writing.
ROLAND BARTHES , Empire of Signs

Japan Voyage

2008-06-25T21:47:00.000+10:00

I wonder what other joys await me in Kyoto, the widow royal city, where I will arrive tonight. Traveling is captivating hunting; you go out never guessing what bird will come along. Traveling is like wine: you drink and you can't imagine what visions will come to your mind. Surely while traveling you find all that you have within you. Without wanting to, from the innumerable impressions that overflow your eyes, you choose and select whatever corresponds more to the needs or curiosities of your soul. "Objective" truth exists only-and how insignificant it is!- in the photographic cameras and in the souls that see the world coldly, without emotion, that is, without deep contact. Those who suffer and love communicate through a mystical intercourse with the landscape they see, the people they mingle with, and the incidents they select. Therefore, every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS, Japan, China: A Journey of Two Voyages to the Far East

Cities comparison

2008-06-12T22:56:00.003+10:00

TOP CITIES - Quality of life.

1 Zurich

2 Vienna

2 Geneva

4 Vancouver

5 Auckland

6 Dusseldorf

7 Munich

7 Frankfurt

9 Bern

10 Sydney

Mercer's 2008 Worldwide Quality of Living Index

Italian Hours

2008-06-10T22:53:00.000+10:00

'It is a fact that almost everyone interesting, appealing, melancholy, memorable, odd, seems at one time or another, after many days and much life, to have gravitated to Venice by a happy instinct, settling in it and treating it, cherishing it, as a sort of repository of consolations; all of which today, for the conscious mind, is mixed with its air and constitutes its unwritten history. The deposed, the defeated, the disenchanted, the wounded, or even only the bored, have seemed to find there something that no other place could give.' Henry James, Italian Hours, 1909

Marble Lions

2008-05-22T20:20:00.004+10:00

I glided off, in one of the dark boats, until we came to an old Arsenal guarded by four marble lions. To make my Dream more monstrous and unlikely, one of these had words and sentences upon its body, inscribed there, at an unknown time, and in an unknown language; so that their purport was a mystery to all men. " Charles Dickens, An Italian Dream, 1844

Italian Journey - Roma

2008-05-18T21:21:00.002+10:00

"In the solitude of the Via Sacra the well-known objects seemed alien and ghost-like. But when I approached the grand ruins of the Colosseum and looked through the gate into the interior, I must frankly confess that a shudder ran through me, and I quickly home.
Any gigantic mass has a peculiar effect on me; it has something about it which is at once fascinating and awe-inspiring. I drew up a summa summarum of my whole stay in Italy, and this roused in my agitated soul a mood I might call heroic-elegiac, for it tried to embody itself in the poetic form of an elegy." Goethe, Italian Journey

[Linxia 临夏 ] - Noodle Shop

2008-05-17T23:59:00.002+10:00

Noodle Shop
Originally uploaded by pmorgan

[Shanghai 上海] - Skyscape

2008-05-08T23:02:00.001+10:00

Photo by pmorgan at Flickr

Shanghai Skyscape
Originally uploaded by pmorgan

Used to be...

2008-05-01T00:55:00.002+10:00

The magic of Sydney is fading for Sydney Magazine's editor who thrives on the creative buzz of New York. "I've noticed Sydney's changing a lot. There's a new aggression and road rage. Sydney used to be all about good sportmanship and politeness. In the last couple of years, there's been a negative energy: a sense of money, greed, and no fair game like there used to be. I say this with certain amount of sadness, as someone who really loves Sydney." Brana Wolf, Sydney Magazine (SMH), May 2008

Sydney - the other side

2008-04-30T23:50:00.001+10:00

"Sydney, it's a bit like Melbourne. More money, less society, more beauty, less substance. Better weather, minus the golf ball hail storms. Illogical urban planning, with buses polluting. Restaurants with views, and long queues. Bigger nightlife, with little soul. Slaves to fashion with little sense of personal style. Leggy blondes that show lots of skin and not much within. More stockbrokers, publicists and unwarranted pretension, with not a hint of discernment or culture." Jessica Smith, Sydney Magazine (SMH), April 2008

Quote of the Day

2008-04-23T23:33:00.000+10:00

"A Slow Day:
Echoes heard
In a corner of Kyoto"
Yosa Buson

City of Haunting Dreams

2008-04-23T22:58:00.001+10:00

"Venice appears to us as if in a dreams, its breathtaking architecture and overwhelming weight of history challenging the soulless uniformity of our modern-day world. This unique city of so many contradictions, of shifting light and dark shadows, subtle movement and fleeting glances, quickly seduces us with its timeless beauty. It is only later that we become aware of its other, more sinister side." Simon Marsden, Venice City of Haunting Dreams 2001

[Mantova] City*set

2008-02-28T23:58:00.001+11:00

Photos by Motocchio

1. swan lake, 2. wings, 3. FADED MEMORY: swan lake in late autumn, 4. FADED MEMORY: drive in a foggy day, 5. PRELUDE: birds, 6. calm swim, 7. the end of the day, the beginning of spring, 8. *, 9. morning at the market day, 10. *, 11. her morning, 12. perspective, 13. winter morning diptych, 14. 冬の散歩／passeggiata invernale, 15. mantova, february 2008, 16. FADED MEMORY: on the way

Hanoi Old Quarter

2008-02-10T23:55:00.001+11:00

By Bui Xuan Phai (1920-1988). A painter famous for the paintings of Hanoi Old Quarter.

[Montreal] - Corroded colossus

2008-02-08T00:35:00.002+11:00

Corroded colossus
Originally uploaded by IrenaS

Photo by IrenaS at Flickr

Still there...

2008-02-04T23:35:00.002+11:00

"I heard the familiar sounds of the street below: the high-pitched call of the bread seller, the newsboys reciting the day's headlines through an amplifier on his bicycle, the growl of jackhammers, the tap, tap, tao of the bronze caster's hammer on an emerging statue of Buddha. It was a reassuring medley, a reminder that even as great changes were sweeping through South East Asia's oldest capital, the intimacy and timelessness of Hanoi lingered, undaunted by the suffering of war or the burdens of peace." David Lamb, National Geographic 2004

[Hanoi] Poem

2008-01-31T13:56:00.001+11:00

Ten years, time turned into a durable thread
Flowers bloom in violets, the wall covered with mold and moss.
Ten years in Hanoi and I have found
My own sort of joys and sorrows.
Poet Nguyen Duc Mau

Quote of the Day

2008-01-30T22:35:00.000+11:00

"Kyoto's beauty is elusive and has to be sought out with patience and forethought......the best of what Kyoto has to offer is often small in scale and of a delicacy that the encroachment of raucous modernity seems always to underline, and sometimes enhance." Alan Booth, 1991

A Little Lost

2008-01-24T00:35:00.001+11:00

"I thought I knew Venice but suddenly you're in the middle of that kaleidoscope of people and places and little pieces and little bridges and little canals and you don't know where the hell you are." Alan Whicker. Sunday Life March 12, 2006

[Beijing] - Population

2007-12-04T22:33:00.001+11:00

The influx of migrant workers into the capital had seen Beijing's population reach 17.4 million, the paper said in a separate report, only 600,000 short of a ceiling of 18 million the city government had set for 2020. Reuters, 4 December 2007

[Shanghai 上海] - Skyline

2007-11-14T01:36:00.001+11:00

skyline
Originally uploaded by ༺lifemage༻

Photo by 'lifemage' at Flickr

[Chongqing] - Disappearing Place

2007-11-01T23:28:00.003+11:00

35-398 重庆龚滩－ Chongqing Gongtan
Originally uploaded by boochap

Photo by boochap at Flickr

[Rome] - Dawn

2007-11-01T23:11:00.002+11:00

Dawn over Rome
Originally uploaded by nicoatridge

Photo by nicoatridge at Flickr

Quote of the Day

2007-11-01T22:48:00.001+11:00

"Bogota is a city of conversation. As yo walk along you have to keep skirting couples or small groups, all absorbed in excited talk. Some of them even stand out in the middle of the street, holding up the traffic. We suppose they are discussing politics. The cafes are crammed, too; and everybody has a newspaper, to quote from or simply wave in the air". The Condor and the Cows, Christopher Isherwood

fyi : Mexico City

2007-11-01T22:28:00.001+11:00

Population : 24 million
Area : 2,000 sq km

Two cities

2007-10-31T23:33:00.001+11:00

"For centuries, travelers, historians, writers, politicians, tourists and even Italians themselves like to compare these two cities : Florence and Siena." Desmond Ong

Perfect City

2007-10-30T21:14:00.000+11:00

"So what do we learn from the Bologna model? if you want create utopia, put your city in the middle of a rich agricultural area; make good eating a priority for everyone; set up a large university and allow it freedom if thought; spend 1000 years building and preserving a historic centre; let workers band together to improve their conditions, run their own businesses, and form a political party; and have your city regularly criticised by religious conservatives so that your citizens can enjoy a satisfying sense of boldness. What could be simpler?"
Essential Places, David Dale

[Mexico City] - Infinite Growth

2007-10-28T23:47:00.003+11:00

Mexico City Skyline
Originally uploaded by kainet

Photo by German Meyer, "Kainet" at Flickr

[Lucca] - aerial

2007-10-28T23:11:00.001+11:00

Aerial view of the well preserved medieval city of Lucca
Source:Google Earth

The most Beautiful Italian City

2007-10-26T20:37:00.000+10:00

Jakob Burckhardt the great historian of the Italian Renaissance wrote, "Considering individual buildings, there are four or five cities preceeding Bologna, but it is and remains the most beautiful Italian city judged as a whole".

[Istanbul] - Galata

2007-10-26T19:02:00.002+10:00

Galata 3
Originally uploaded by Atilla1000

Photo by Atilla Kefeli, "Atilla1000" at Flickr

Quotes of the Day

2007-10-24T00:05:00.001+10:00

"For the first time in human history more than half of the world lives in cities and it's rising". Sustain That, Architecture Review Australia 2005

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls -- the world"
-Lord Byron-

"Florence is beautiful, as I have said before, and must say again and again, most beautiful. The river rushes through the midst of its palaces like a crystal arrow, and it is hard to tell, when you see all by the clear sunset, whether those churches, and houses, and windows, and bridges, and people walking, in the water or out of the water, are real walls and windows, and bridges, and people, and churches." - Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Letter to Mr. Boyd (1847)

[Sana'a] - Panorama

2007-10-21T20:59:00.002+10:00

Originally uploaded by Further to Fly

Photo by Paul Simon, "Further to Fly" at Flickr

[Bologna] - Red City

2007-10-19T22:31:00.001+10:00

bologna17f
Originally uploaded by displace

Photo by Desmond Ong, displace at Flickr