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Invisible Cities: Online Greenlight Review

The document is a summary of Calvino's book "Invisible Cities" focusing on the city of Isaura. Isaura is described as a city built over a deep subterranean lake, with its inhabitants able to draw up water from wells dug vertically into the ground. The underground lake conditions the visible landscape above it. The city's religion is also influenced by its water source, with some believing the gods live in the underground lake or wells/machinery that draw up the water. The city moves entirely upward, defying a clear distinction between interior and exterior.

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ted stapleton
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104 views

Invisible Cities: Online Greenlight Review

The document is a summary of Calvino's book "Invisible Cities" focusing on the city of Isaura. Isaura is described as a city built over a deep subterranean lake, with its inhabitants able to draw up water from wells dug vertically into the ground. The underground lake conditions the visible landscape above it. The city's religion is also influenced by its water source, with some believing the gods live in the underground lake or wells/machinery that draw up the water. The city moves entirely upward, defying a clear distinction between interior and exterior.

Uploaded by

ted stapleton
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Invisible Cities

Online Greenlight Review


THUMBNAILS
Esmerelda
Isaura
Baucis
Thekla
Tamara
Diomira
Fedora
Leonia
Phyllis
Ersilla & Sophronia
Armilla, Moriana, and Zenobia
120 121 Armilla 122 123

124 Zenobia 125 126 Moriana

127
My Key Thumbnails
My Chosen City- Isaura
ISAURA, CITY OF the thousand wells, is said to rise over a
deep, subterranean lake. On all sides, wherever the inhabitants
dig long vertical holes in the ground, they succeed in
drawing up water, as far as the city extends, and no farther.
Its green border repeats the dark outline of the buried lake; an
invisible landscape conditions the visible one; everything that
moves in the sunlight is driven by the lapping wave enclosed
beneath the rock's calcareous sky.
Consequently two forms of religion exist in Isaura.
The city's gods, according to some people, live in the
depths, in the black lake that feeds the underground streams.
According to others, the gods live in the buckets that rise,
suspended from a cable, as they appear over the edge of the
wells, in the revolving pulleys, in the windlasses of the norias,
in the pump handles, in the blades of the windmills that draw
the water up from the drillings, in the trestles that support the
twisting probes, in the reservoirs perched on stilts over
the roofs, in the slender arches of the aqueducts, in all the
columns of water, the vertical pipes, the plungers, the drains,
all the way up to the weathercocks that surmount the airy
scaffoldings of Isaura, a city that moves entirely upward.
Mission Statement
Out of the 14 cities that I could of selected, I chose Isaura mainly because I like how the idea of
challenging what is exterior and what is interior being blurred and vague. It becomes hard to
discern what is traditionally considered ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ because of how Isaura is for the
most part described as being underground next to a subterranean lake. There is also the contrast
in the environments I want to explore, in the colours, in architecture and in the form and shape
of the city and its surroundings.

For colours, I imagined a stark difference between the outside of the cavern and within it. The
bright, encompassing warm tones of the dry terrain located beyond Isaura juxtaposed by the
more muted, dark and colder tones of the subterranean world. The difference between the
formation of the cavern and the desert, as I imagined it to be, outside. The former more organic
and weather while the latter I envision to be flat and strewn with little thin vegetation as
opposed to softer, more numerous plant life of below due to the moist environment.

I also want to study architecture, namely middle-eastern and Indian forms due to being known to
be associated with hot and dry climates. Also how it may blend with the natural world – blurring
the distinction between man-made and organic forms.

Ultimately my goal is to bring Calvino’s city Isaura alive, full realize it in all its extraordinary
nature.
Influence map Exterior
Influence Map Interior

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