Bird’s-eye views of cities around the world, from Paris to Hong Kong, are visualized in the form of surgical tools like scalpels and skin graft blades against glossy black surfaces by famed British artist Damien Hirst. The ‘Black Scalpel Cityscapes’ series continues the artist’s method of using sharp metal objects to create complex compositions in stark monochrome.

The depiction of these cities (many of which are sites of recent conflict) from an aerial viewpoint references the ‘all-seeing eye’ of constant surveillance in the modern era. Look closely and among the blades and surgical tools you’ll also see small items that relate to each individual city, like cheap silver keychains of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and even silvery condom wrappers.

In a video interview with White Cube, Hirst explains that he began working with scalpel blades “because they’ve got kind of a nice and nasty feel to them.” Flying over Milton Keynes, a town in England, he noted how modern and unnatural the landscape looked, sparking the idea for the series. In addition to cities like Baghdad, which have a symbolic connection to the medium used, Hirst depicted cities that are personally meaningful to him.

“I’ve done one of the Vatican where I’ve used lots of religious symbols. So I think you try to make them into a portrait, but always from a distance they’re going to look totally like a photograph.”

In cities where highways and high-rises have taken up virtually every square foot of real estate there is to be had, lush parks, pedestrian walkways and bike paths can be hard to come by. That’s why, in many cities, supporters of public green space are starting to look up, and they’re reclaiming and rehabilitating abandoned infrastructure in the process. New York City’s The High Line has inspired cities across the world to consider disused railways and viaducts as elevated parks, and rooftop recreation spots are increasing in popularity, too.

The High Line, New York City

A rail track that was decommissioned in 1980, standing in disrepair as an eyesore for decades, is now one of New York City’s most popular attractions after its transformation into an elevated park. The High Line is a one-mile section of the former New York Central Railroad spur called The West Side, running along the lower west side of Manhattan, offering views of the city and the Hudson River along with walkways, naturalist plantings, and spots to rest. Its revitalization has spurred development in neighborhoods that lie alongside it.

Namba Parks, Osaka

Eight levels of sloping parks full of trees, cliffs, boulders, lawns, streams, waterfalls and outdoor terraces gradually wind up the rooftop of a lifestyle center adjacent to a 30-story tower in Osaka, Japan. Namba Parks provides greenery and recreation space in a city full of concrete, where nature can be difficult to access. Spaces carved from this rooftop space down to the bottom level of the building create artificial ‘canyons’ for natural lighting.

Promenade Plantee, Paris

Promenade Plantee is the elevated park that started it all, predating the High Line by nearly twenty years. It was built along Paris’ elevated Viaduct des Arts, which supported the Vincennes Railway from 1859 to 1969. The arcades under the viaduct were converted into art galleries and artisan workshops.

QueensWay Park on the Long Island Railroad, New York

The QueensWay project has been a controversial proposal, because although additional public green space would be a great thing for the residents of the Queens borough of New York City, many people feel that restoring the rail line to underserved areas would be even more beneficial. Nonetheless, the plan is moving forward, with a 3.5-mile section of decommissioned railway set to become a park.

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Leisure In The Sky 13 Railway Rooftop Parks

Hundreds of outlandish architectural proposals envisioned for cities around the world are rejected every year, but some are notable for their vision, controversial nature or sheer scale. Berlin, for example, would be a very different place if Hitler had won World War II, and massive cities designed by Buckminster Fuller could be floating on the seas just off American shores. These seven unbuilt urban wonders of the world range from feasible concepts and almost-built developments to utopian pipe dreams.

Welthaupstadt: Hitler’s Vision for Berlin

If Hitler had won World War II, as he expected, this is what he planned to do to Berlin: turn it into ‘World Capital Germania,’ filled with monuments honoring himself and the Third Reich. The photograph depicts a miniature model Hitler created along with Albert Speer, the “first architect of the Third Reich.” Among the massive planned structures were an Olympic stadium that would remain the largest in the world today if it had ever been completed, a large open forum, and a triumphal arch based on Paris’ Arc de Triomphe (only much larger, naturally.)

The city would have been reorganized around ‘The Avenue of Splendours,’ a north-south axis serving as a parade ground with traffic diverted into an underground highway. Sections of the tunnels were started but never completed, and remain in place today.

Project X: Disney’s EPCOT as a Real City

Walt Disney wanted EPCOT (the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) to be a real, functioning city, and had every intention of making it so when he first began working on ‘Project X,’ the basis of what would eventually become Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Walt wanted EPCOT to be the opposite of 1950s Los Angeles, where he lived and worked. Plans for the project were designed in the special ‘Florida Room’ at Disney Studios. With a thirty-story hotel as its centerpiece, EPCOT was meant to be “a utopian environment enriched in education, and in expanding technology. A perfect city with dependable public transportation, a soaring civic center covered by an all-weather dome, and model factories concealed in green belts that were readily accessible to workers housed in idyllic suburban subdivisions nearby.”

Walt made a film showcasing the new city and showed it to a few friends shortly before his death. Walt’s brother Roy was skeptical, however, and shifted the plans to create ‘Disneyland East,’ or Walt Disney World. EPCOT isn’t exactly what Walt imagined, but vestiges of his ideas can be seen in the city of Celebration, Florida, located on the Disney World property.

Dongtan, China: The First Mega Eco-City That Almost Was

Dongtan was to be an eco-friendly utopia, the worlds first large-scale sustainable city producing 100% of its own energy from wind, solar, bio-fuel and recycled city waste. Public transit was to be powered by clean tech like hydrogen fuel cells, though the city was designed to be walkable and bikeable. Organic farms within the city limits were to produce most of residents’ food. Developers imagined that Dongtan would serve as a shining example for cities across China and the developing world.

Plans called for the city to be partially constructed by 2010, with accommodations for 10,000 residents, and fully functional for 50,000 by 2020. They began to fall apart in 2006 when Shanghai’s former mayor, the most enthusiastic supporter of the project, was arrested for property-related fraud, and reporters visiting the site found that ground hadn’t even been broken.

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7 Unbuilt Urban Wonders Of The World

At its best, advertising is entertaining, even useful. At its worst, it is invasive, abrasive, and perhaps even offensive. IBM’s new campaign from Ogilvy France skirts the line, featuring public objects that are useful but which somewhat invade the urban space.

The Smart Ideas for Smarter Cities campaign includes three billboards that extend out from city walls and into the urban environment. One is an awning of sorts, providing a dry space for residents to get out of the rain or a bit of shade to get out of the sun.

Another is a small bench which gives weary pedestrians the chance to sit down for a moment. The last is a ramp that covers a portion of a small staircase, letting cyclists or luggage-wheeling residents take an easier route.

The campaign is meant to inspire viewers to think differently about their cities and how some elements could be tweaked to be more useful for residents. It’s something of a risk, however, since this invasion of the urban environment may not be welcomed by residents who think that advertising is already too ubiquitous on city streets.

(images via: Fast Company)

Occupying an abandoned five-story apartment building in central Taipei, Ruin Academy is a living architectural laboratory where holes drilled in the walls let rain inside, plants grow from the floors and the bones of the structure serve as ‘compost’ for the future of the city. A collaboration between Finland-based Casagrande Laboratory and the Taiwanese JUT Foundation for Arts & Architecture, this project aims to “re-think the industrial city and the modern man in a box.”

Ruin Academy serves as a setting for workshops and courses for various Taiwanese and international universities in subjects like architecture, urban design and environmental art. The lines between the city and the building have been blurred with the removal of windows and interior walls, so bamboo and vegetables can be grown indoors. Students and professors sleep in ad-hoc dormitories. The mahogany elements of the interiors, like walkways and steps, are made to be rearranged as the inhabitants’ needs change.

“The Ruin Academy is looking at the ruining processes of Taipei that keep the city alive,” says Marco Casagrande on the Ruin Academy blog. The idea is that static urban structures aren’t a natural way of life, and that the ‘Third Generation City’ would mix nature with human construction in an ever-changing symbiosis. Restoring nature within cities, growing food indoors, and living in structures that constantly adapt and change is seen as a more organic way for humans to interact with our environment.

The Ruin Academy is just one of the many illegal, unsanctioned ‘parasite’ structures that have popped up on top of and around Taipei’s conventional modern buildings. Organic and often transient structures made of materials like bamboo or plastic sheeting sprout on the roofs of concrete skyscrapers and in abandoned lots, used as artist housing, urban farms, night markets and other social gathering places.