Andria was built so that its every street follows a planet’s orbit, and the buildings and the places of communal life repeat the order of the constellations and the position of the most luminous stars. The inhabitants are convinced that any change in the city affects the order of the sky.
Note
Andria is built with such art that every street traces a planet’s orbit, and every building, every place of common life, repeats the order of the constellations and the position of the brightest stars. The city’s calendar is set by that day’s firmament: work, offices, ceremonies each have their place assigned from above. The inhabitants believe that every change in the city is felt up there too, so they weigh each change with care; and when they raise a new observatory, a new star appears.
The scene takes this correspondence literally: six concentric rings turn like orbits, the inner ones faster, carrying their towers with them; overhead, an exact mirror, the same map burns in the sky, one star for every building, bound to it by a thin thread and by lines of constellation. The observatory at the centre does not look outward: it watches its own household sky, its telescope sweeping slowly over what the city has written above itself.
Touch a building and watch it glide to a new degree of its orbit, its star following in a flash; touch an open stretch of street and a tower will rise from the paving, lighting a star never seen before. In Andria, to change the city is, literally, to rewrite the sky.
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.