![]() ![]() Invisible Cities presents itself as a conversation between Kublai Khan ruler of China and Marco Polo the 13th C explorer. Italo Calvino (talking about Invisible Cities ’83 Columbis Uni) Ref Basic Structure A natural place, home of the human mind.Ī book…is a space in which a reader can enter, turn about, perhaps lose himself, but at a certain point find an exit…Some of you may tell me that this definition better suits a novel of plot, and not a book like this…All right, but I would claim that also a work like this, in order to be a book, must have a certain construction, in which it’s possible to discover a plot, an itinerary, a resolution. Invisible Cities is poem to the city as Calvino sees it, more natural and reflective of nature and psychology rather than finance and technology. It is a space which the reader must enter, wander round, maybe loose his way in, and then eventually find an exit, or perhaps even several exits, or maybe a way of breaking out on his own.Ĭalvino definitely tries to address the modern city today, introducing the mega cities of the present today also at the end of the book. It needed a beginning and end and although not with a traditional plot ![]() He wrote the cities over a great deal of time, the cities were written like individual poems often reflecting the mood he was in then.Īll these cities did not make a book by themselves. Italo Calvino gave a lecture to the students of the Graduate writing division at Columbia University on Main which he talked about the writing of Invisible Cities. He is well known for playing with the narrative structure of his books and was associated with varies intellectual groups like the Structuralists and Oulipo that used maths as constraints to provoke and create meaning. After the war he graduated and became a much published and translated journalist and author. He went into hiding rather than join the fascist military of Benito Mussolini and later joined the underground resistance in WWII. Italo Calvino born in Cuba but his Italian parents moved back with him when he was 2 years old. ![]() The structure of the book in fact, is an integral part of the beauty of its beauty. This I feel is really important because of the way the book was written. A post modern novel with little plot and seemingly a much more poetic dreamlike quality.īut on starting to read and being drawn into the novel I think it becomes apparent why this has become such a touchstone for creative thinking about design and cities and why many architects love it so much, me included.īefore the review I will give some background and have a more detailed look at the structure of the book. It’s a staple for architecture students and architects alike, but why is it so popular and what’s so interesting about it? After all it may not seem on first sight to be particularly relevant to the practice of architecture as although it proports to be about cities it’s actually a magical realist book whose cities are dreamlike creations. It is an innovative story that has been profoundly influential in literary, architectural and many other creative fields, and consequently Invisible Cities is considered a remarkable and masterful book.The Book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino is a classic modernist novel yet has had a widespread popularity that elevates it above most books of its type and has come to have an enduring influence among artists and architects. ![]() Invisible Cities gives way to a collection of bizarre, beautiful, horrible and terrifying cities - although at times strangely familiar and other times terrifically impossible. These various encounters, the constructions of imagined cities, are filled with persuasive imagery, rich in architectural form and offer suggestive in cultural and social metaphors as a comment on the nature of our perceptions and rituals. Unbeknown to Khan, Polo is describing, over and over again, the myriad of invented forms of Venice - the very city they both dwell in. Italo Calvino uses sublime prose to evoke the extraordinary and yet illusory endeavours of a young Marco Polo, who describes to the Kublai Khan, the exotic and global encounters he pretends to have witnessed. Victoria writes: Invisible Cities is a brilliant novel about the dominance of imagination, the lust of desire, the power of the Other and the evocative nature of 'story'. ![]()
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