Is it possible to design a city in 10 minutes? Peter Barber, a London-based architect, strives to prove that in his sketches of cities making up his project “One Year 365 Cities”. Pietro Cataudella is another artist that made incredible sketches of famous landmarks.
“We think that space conditions, and in turn are conditioned by, society and culture and that architecture can create the potential for social action and activity.”
With this being Barber’s manifesto, it comes as no surprise to see very different illustrations of hypothetical designs of cities come from one architect.
365 Sketches of Cities in one year!
Barber is the founder of Peter Barber Architects. He has designed and built numerous housing schemes in London. However, since the 17th of August, he has been developing sketches of urban masterplans on daily basis. According to an interview with the architect, by Dezeen, there were two triggers to the idea of this project. The first one is a statement by American theorist Lewis Mumford, asserting the failure of modernism to produce decent ideas of neighborhoods, while the second one is a remark made by his friend at a pub, claiming that one should be able to design a city within 10 minutes.
The architect uploads his sketches daily on his Instagram account “One Year 365 Cities”. Also, each image offers a brief description. So far, Barber has presented a variety of urban landscapes, including farming cooperative in Wiltshire, UK, an island village of fish farmers in the Thames estuary, a town in the Basque region of Spain, and a rammed earth Troglodyte village in woodland in North Norfolk inspired by Tunisia’s Mamata town. Therefore, each visualization is inspired differently, some in more obvious ways than others. Barber hopes to provoke questions on how our cities are designed and reflect on their current state. By this, the architect invites us to question our priorities as a society and how that might be reflected in the process of producing space. On the other hand, the project has also helped the architect structure his own thoughts as a designer, hoping to encourage more people to sketch.
With every illustration, a different series of questions and scenarios come to mind, showing the success of the project’s intent. However, it is difficult to fully analyze these illustrations more theoretically. As this isn’t their intent, one looks forward to seeing the full set of illustration grow throughout the year!
All images courtesy of Peter Barber.
Hala holds a Master’s degree in Sustainable Building Engineering with Distinction from the University of Greenwich, London. She earned her undergraduate degree in Architectural Systems Engineering from the Modern Sciences and Arts University (MSA), Al-Jizah. Hala has served as an Assistant Lecturer at MSA University and worked as an Editor at Arch2O.com. She worked also as a Project Coordinator and Research Assistant for the "Cairo Since 1900: Architecture Guide" project, contributing to the documentation and analysis of Cairo’s modern architectural heritage.