In a series of photos taken over seven years, now published in a new book called Ciphers, photographer Christoph Gielen shows a different perspective on sprawl, intended to get more people to question typical patterns of development.
"I meant for Ciphers to be provocative at a time when we are witnessing a phenomenal escalation in urban construction ... when entire cities are emerging fully formed in India and China, rather than slowly evolving," says Gielen.
— fastcoexist.com
5 Comments
I sometimes fly around in google earth and look at the mess. It's pretty amazing how our developments closely resemble bacterial growth. If aliens are flying around up there I'm certain they would conclude that we are a disease.
They wouldn't have to get very close, the radiation levels and orbital ring of garbage is a clear sign to stay away.
Is this a new trend or something? These aerial photographers seem to rather rampant these days....
Alex Maclean has been doing the same thing for years as well.
http://www.alexmaclean.com/
"Oddly beautiful" suggests some kind of accidental order. It's not accidental, it's very deliberate.
This kind of subdivision design for a clear composition visible from the air is done on purpose. It's also one of the biggest critiques of physical planning done by architects, master planners, and civil engineers: the plan looks (and is) geometrically composed from above, but may fail in terms of lived experience on the ground.
This problem is inherent in plan-making, done at a table or a screen by folks trained to appreciate abstract visual order as a good thing in its own right. Going beyond this step to consider the messy realities of site, natural forces as well as human-made forces, is critically important. It's also difficult, and often skipped as a result.
And it's not new, of course...
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