Invisible Cities - Fall 2019
There are three phases in this project. The first two phases depict a city described in the book, Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. The final phase is a set of connections between to other cities.
Enter your text here...The city of Octavia is described as the spider-webbed city. It is a city in between two mountains that is suspended over the abyss. It is also said to have hammocks, sack houses, cable cars, rope ladders, and more. I decided to make this city into an inverted city with a spiderweb as its base. There are cut rubber bands that symbolize all of the different things hanging from the city. Finally, the city is hanging in between two mountain peaks.
The city of Perinthia is a calculated city that reflects the heavens and the Sun. It is said that this city is a perfect utopia based off of the zodiac. However, there is a duality to Perinthia; some call it the “city of monsters.” In order to represent the dual city, I decided to create the “perfect” city above ground and an underground city that is almost ruins. The top has a spherical building representing the Sun surrounded by twelve towers, symbolizing the twelve zodiac constellations. The underground has a similar spherical building at its center. However, its buildings are much smaller and house the "monsters" that don’t belong in the perfect city. One constraint that made this city different from the first was that this city had to be completely subtractive. In order to do this, I started with a 3D model of a cube and cut out parts until the model was finished. I then separated the model into two pieces so it could be 3D printed.
The two cities I chose to connect were both 3D printed and had layers designed into them. Because of this, I was able to have two separate connections between the cities. The dowel rods are tunnels that connect the two cities. The connections correspond to the cities they connect. The first connection transports the rich and “perfect” citizens. The top connection also has multiple viewing platforms that are fairly open. In contrast, the lower connection is for the poor and “monsters” and only has one platform that is completely enclosed. It is also darker and has more debris. The two pathways are connected in the middle showing that it is possible to travel between the two, but they are still distinctly separate.