…and creating something to write about.

“[A] city is more than its physical landmarks: it is how it interacts with its people. They know a city needs more than signature buildings and retail, leisure and investment opportunities. It needs remembered pasts, closely-observed presents, imagined futures, and some collision of all three. It needs maps not only of the city’s streets, but of the skies above it, the tunnels beneath it, and the rivers and canals which run through it, of the things that are there only if you listen, only if you look carefully enough, only if you read the book you now hold in your hands.” — C.D. Rose, from the Introduction to Birmingham (2020).

This pair of imaginary urban plans comes from a 2018 calendar by Italian artist Federico Cortese (born 1971) — not to be confused with another Italian artist of the same name [1829–1913], nor with the current music director of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra; popular name in Italy, apparently. I’m still looking for a copy of that calendar but in the meantime someone on the WWW has put all the images on pinterest. These and others in that collection are inspiration for the map I’ve been trying to create for the Agincourt city directory.

For those with an interest, I recommend Urban Geofiction. There is even a map generator at Maps Mania.