Invisible Cities

Marco Polo describes to Kublai Khan the cities he has visited. Perhaps they are all one city; perhaps none exists. Here each becomes a small place to explore and touch: an interpretation, not an illustration.

The cities

1. Cities & Memory · 1DiomiraThe city of sixty silver domes, and the evening that seems already lived.
2. Cities & Memory · 2IsidoraThe city dreamed of in youth and reached in old age: spiral stairs, and a wall to watch from.
3. Cities & Desire · 1DorotheaThe city described by numbers, and the many roads that open to whoever enters.
4. Cities & Memory · 3ZairaThe city made of the measurements of its space and the events of its past.
5. Cities & Desire · 2AnastasiaThe city of desires, made by the hands of those it enslaves.
6. Cities & Signs · 1TamaraThe city thick with signs, which tells you everything you must think.
7. Cities & Memory · 4ZoraThe city that cannot be forgotten, and so disappears.
8. Cities & Desire · 3DespinaThe city that looks like a fleet from the desert and a caravan from the sea.
9. Cities & Signs · 2ZirmaThe redundant city, repeating itself so that something will stick in the mind.
10. Thin Cities · 1IsauraThe city of a thousand wells, rising whole above a buried lake, visible in cross-section where the earth is cut away.
11. Cities & Memory · 5MauriliaThe city of today, and the old postcards of what stood there before.
12. Cities & Desire · 4FedoraThe grey metropolis and the blue cities it might have been, kept in glass globes.
13. Cities & Signs · 3ZoeThe city of indivisible existence, where any house could be anything.
14. Thin Cities · 2ZenobiaThe city on high stilts over dry land, grown out of desire.
15. Trading Cities · 1EuphemiaThe city where memory is traded at every solstice and every equinox.
16. Cities & Desire · 5ZobeideA labyrinth city built to trap a dreamed woman, never seen again.
17. Cities & Signs · 4HypatiaThe city where every sign points somewhere else.
18. Thin Cities · 3ArmillaThe city made only of plumbing, with tubs and basins hung against the sky.
19. Trading Cities · 2ChloeThe chaste city where every glance between strangers is an imagined story.
20. Cities & Eyes · 1ValdradaThe city built on the shore of a lake, and its upside-down double.
21. Cities & Signs · 5OliviaThe city seen through a screen of words.
22. Thin Cities · 4SophroniaThe double city: the fair stays, the stone half moves away every year.
23. Trading Cities · 3EutropiaSeven identical cities on a plateau: only one inhabited, until weariness moves everyone on.
24. Cities & Eyes · 2ZemrudeThe city that takes the shape of the mood of whoever crosses it, depending on where you carry your eyes.
25. Cities & Names · 1AglauraThe city spoken of and the city that is, visible from one point only.
26. Thin Cities · 5OctaviaThe spider-web city, suspended over an abyss between two mountains.
27. Trading Cities · 4ErsiliaThe city of threads strung between houses, abandoned and begun again elsewhere.
28. Cities & Eyes · 3BaucisThe city above the clouds on flamingo legs, watching the earth without touching it.
29. Cities & Names · 2LeandraThe city where the gods of the house stay and those of the family leave.
30. Cities & the Dead · 1MelaniaThe city where the dialogue stays and the speakers change.
31. Trading Cities · 5EsmeraldaThe city of water where every day brings a new route.
32. Cities & Eyes · 4PhyllisThe city of wonders that habit turns into a blank page.
33. Cities & Names · 3PyrrhaThe imagined city that vanishes once the real one is seen.
34. Cities & the Dead · 2AdelmaThe city where every new face resembles one already lost.
35. Cities & the Sky · 1EudoxiaThe disordered city and the carpet that holds its true form.
36. Cities & Eyes · 5MorianaA city built from a single sheet: glass and coral on one face, rust and soot on the other.
37. Cities & Names · 4ClariceThe city always remade from its own pieces.
38. Cities & the Dead · 3EusapiaThe city of the living that imitates its underground copy of the dead.
39. Cities & the Sky · 2BeershebaThe city that believes its heaven is gold, when it is made of what it discards.
40. Continuous Cities · 1LeoniaThe city that renews itself every day, besieged by mountains of its own refuse.
41. Cities & Names · 5IreneThe city that exists only from afar.
42. Cities & the Dead · 4ArgiaThe city that has earth instead of air.
43. Cities & the Sky · 3TheklaThe building site that never finishes, whose plan appears each night as stars.
44. Continuous Cities · 2TrudeThe city that covers the world, the same everywhere but for the name.
45. Hidden Cities · 1OlindaA city that grows in concentric rings, like the rings of a tree trunk: to look at it is to sink into it.
46. Cities & the Dead · 5LaudomiaThe city of the living between that of the dead and the endless one of the unborn.
47. Cities & the Sky · 4PerinthiaThe city founded on the harmony of the sky, which grows crooked.
48. Continuous Cities · 3ProcopiaThe view from the same window, its light, sky and season changing year by year.
49. Hidden Cities · 2RaissaThe sad city crossed by a thread of happiness.
50. Cities & the Sky · 5AndriaThe city that mirrors the sky: every building has its star, every street its orbit.
51. Continuous Cities · 4CeciliaThe city grown over the pastures until no one knows where they are.
52. Hidden Cities · 3MaroziaThe city of the rat hiding the city of the swallow.
53. Continuous Cities · 5PenthesileaThe city that is all outskirts, whose centre never arrives.
54. Hidden Cities · 4TheodoraThe city cleansed of every creature, where those from the books return.
55. Hidden Cities · 5BereniceThe unjust city hiding a just one, which hides another unjust one.

Quotations are brief excerpts for the purpose of commentary. The full text is available in published editions. The Cities of Ottavia, Valdrada & the soundtrack are inspired by "Monument Valley" from ustwo games.