The following article is derived from the building excavation chicken, the author of the construction excavation chicken
Isomatic
isomer
Bruno Cruz
Isomatic is a series of isometric drawings converted into illustrations that illustrate urban scenes in different colors and shapes. It all started with painting real neighborhoods and buildings or fictional city scenes in 2D auto cad, with the help of Google Street View or photos I found. Once the drawings of the building were ready, I began to fill it with hand-drawn objects, nature, people and animals in The Illustrator.
The project became more consistent when I started working on a series of illustrations focused on Berlin's iconic neighborhoods. Kottbusser Tor, Kurfürstendamm, Oberbaumbrücke, in my eyes, they became playful and colorful, little paradise inhabited by dinosaurs and other wild animals, a bit of a Sailor Moon. I was (and still are) obsessed with dinosaurs; since there are no living creatures anymore, they fit my fantasy world. They represent fantasy, contrasting with the (sometimes) dark and heavy realities of these places.
| The author interviewed |
What led to this project?
The project has never been planned like this, and somehow it is a series of ideas and experiments developed around 2016. As an architect, I have been involved in urban projects for several years, with a special focus on density and diversity, to achieve urban density, city after city. This thought influenced the way I looked at the city and its environment.
During my break in work, I began to explore some of the basic isometric drawings of buildings I had done before, and from that I imagined the stories that might happen in these spaces. I was encouraged to publish some of these paintings and the feedback was very surprising. From this moment on, I felt the need to think deeper about these illustrations and not just do something interesting and colorful.
What problems did the project raise and what problems did it solve?
I was living in Berlin at the time, near Kottbusser Tor, one of the poorest neighborhoods in West Berlin. It is a very peculiar place, most notably Neues Kreuzberger Zentrum, a very prominent social housing complex. Here one can find mosques, Middle Eastern supermarkets and restaurants, gay bars, casinos, social centers, drug use facilities, children's playgrounds, metro stations, etc. Together, all of these elements have created enormous social tensions, especially in public spaces.
"Iso Kotti" was the first painting I really started developing as a project. I mapped the complex and its surroundings precisely, even though it was a very dense place, and I turned it into a more dense place, making it more dense and diverse, just like a child imagines. From here I've chosen other iconic neighborhoods with the same characteristics and applied the same ideas to them, turning heavy and soulless places into chaotic playgrounds of color and fictional characters.
Through these illustrations, I wanted to create a very optimistic and enjoyable utopian vision, based on iconic and almost outdated neighborhoods, without any attempt at realism, and these images still capture the essence of these places.
What drew you to equidistant projection as a medium to explore these realities?
When working on urban and architectural projects, equidistant views are always an essential tool for expressing project intent. An isometric isometric projection shows an infinite space, and in contrast to perspective, everything is represented in the same scale and relevance, which can be an endless picture. If you put different illustrations together, they can all be read as a continuous image.
What role do the characters who inhabit these urban landscapes play? How do they inform these realities?
Figures such as dinosaurs, sculptures, or exotic trees replace real people who belong to these urban landscapes. These figures are in part an artistic exploration of the urban imagination. They live in almost parallel existences that make the space they represent more dramatic—a fantastic wonderland. Although this is an exercise in fantasy about the city, this fantasy is actually reality. I was (and still is) obsessed with dinosaurs. They fit my fantasy world perfectly. They represent fantasies that contrast with the dark and heavy realities of these places and create new relationships on the urban scale.
How does painting exist between the real and the imaginary? What is their potential?
These drawings are an exploration of the urban imagination. The pictorial imagination of the urban landscape, both present or absent, but also realistic, allows the ideal of form to be reintroduced in an animated magical or dreamlike landscape. These drawings are like children's coloring books. At first, they contained only artistic lines that could be filled with colors and graphics. These characters create novel stories, ideas, and new forms. When I create fantasy stories in these urban landscapes, I intend to see these paintings as a way to better understand the city in which they live, to make people aware and curious.
What do you think is the power of architectural imagination?
The power of architectural imagination allows us to imagine new possibilities for cities. It allows us to experience and explore how creative thinking can turn mundane things into magical experiences. Imagination can be a critique of the current city, helping us to seek new visions, shaping new forms and spaces that make them exciting future possibilities, new paradigms, a space for creation and acceptance.
| About the author |
Bruno Pinto da Cruz, a self-employed architect and illustrator, started a project called Isomatic.
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