Italo Calvino’s Invisible CitiesThe book is about a

series of conversations between the aging and busy

emperor Kublai Khan, who constantly has merchants

coming to describe the state of his expanding and vast

empire, and Marco Polo. The book consists of

brief prose poems describing 55 cities, narrated by

Polo.

Due to the fact that Marco Polo and Kublai Khan do not

speak the same language, Polo explains the various

cities he visits, by showing the emperor objects that

originate from them. As a result each character

understands the other through their own interpretation

of what they are saying. Because of this language

barrier they try to overcome the descriptions are not

full, which leaves room for the individual reader to

make decisions of how the city looks like.

The City

Whether Armilla is like this because it is unfinished or because it has been

demolished, whether the cause is some enchantment or only a whim, I do not know.

The fact remains that it has no walls, no ceilings, no floors: it has nothing

that makes it seem a city except the water pipes that rise vertically where the

houses should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should be: a

forest of pipes that end in taps, showers, spouts, overflows. Against the sky a

lavabo's white stands out, or a bathtub, or some other porcelain, like late

fruit still hanging from the boughs. You would think that the plumbers had

finished their job and gone away before the bricklayers arrived; or else their

hydraulic systems, indestructable, had survived a catastrophe, an earthquake, or

the corrosion of termites.

Abandoned before or after it was inhabited, Armilla cannot be called deserted.

At any hour, raising your eyes among the pipes, you are likely to glimpse a

young woman, or many young women, slender, not tall of stature, luxuriating in

the bathtubs or arching their backs under the showers suspended in the void,

washing or drying or perfuming themselves, or combing their long hair at a

mirror. In the sun, the threads of water fanning from the showers glisten, the

jets of the taps, the spurts, the splases, the sponges' suds.

I have come to this explaination: the streams of water channeled in the pipes of

Armilla have remained in th posession of nymphs and naiads. Accustomed to

traveling along underground veins, they found it easy to enter the new aquatic

realm, to burst from multiple fountains, to find new mirrors, new games, new

ways of enjoying the water. Their invasion may have driven out the human beings,

or Armilla may have been built by humans as a votive offering to win the favor

of the nymphs, offended at the misuse of the waters. In any case, now they seem

content, these maidens: in the morning you hear them singing.

Armilla

Research

The image I was going

for was of a water city

years after whatever

has happened to it. A

place inhabited by

inhuman creatures who

are unfamiliar to the

way the pipes work and

reconstruct things to

their needs. Since it

is implied that the

creatures there like

playing games in this

`aquatic realm’ I

wanted to give it a

look like aqua park

surrounded by nature

and life.

Development

Thumbnails

At first I was trying

to figure out the world

I’m presenting. I

wanted to understand

what the creatures

inhabiting it would use

as items/materials on

daily basis. How could

I make the pipes look

more interesting or

more like slides. If

should it have an

interior, how should it

look? Where would they

live amongst the pipes,

or are the pipes their

homes? If they have a

religion on what should

it be based?

Thumbnails

I wanted to work with the

colours which would show

exactly the mood I felt

while I was reading the

passage. Also what is

outside the city and

where it is situated.

Since there are few

assumptions as to what

happened to the it, I

choose the demolished

idea. From here it

accrued me that it could

be built on a volcano

mountain, which sounded

quite logical.

Thumbnails

I was trying to work out

some structures like

buildings with slides

that could be used as

traveling from one `pipe

structure’ to another.

Thumbnails

Materials

Since the city itself is

based on sort of

repetition of objects

(pipes) and it would’ve

taken me too long to draw

each pipe separately, I

collaged all the things

that were the same and I

use it to build the base

of my drawings. Trees,

some objects I came up

with as part of the

scenery and of course

lots of different pipes.

Final concepts

Process of

Exterior

Establishing

shot

I struggled quite a bit

with this shot, because

at first I was unsure of

the surroundings. When I

got that part figured

out and I realized I

couldn’t put the volcano

in this shot, I wanted

to bring it’s mystical

look I was seeing in my

imagination so I made it

to be seen through a

pipe, which is how the

creatures that inhabit

it enter the city.

Process of

Exterior Low

angle shot

This shot went though a

lot of stages, because

of the extreme

perspective and content

I wanted to put in it. I

wanted to show what

makes this city the way

it is – demolished for

it’s volcano, aqua park

for it’s never-ending

supply of water and a

small pinch of religion.

A statue of a man whose

hands turn into slides

by the time they reach

the river.

Process of

Interior shot

For this shot I wanted to

show more of the

religious side of the

city. This is a secret

holy place behind one of

the waterfalls, where one

can bath in the holy

waters of the gods.