something old, something new, something blue

The capital city of Slovenia, Ljubljana has an impressive network of public spaces: squares, riverfronts, bridges and pedestrian streets with carefully selected street furniture in all the different areas that vary from ancient Roman to hippie Metelkova. The city is absolutely worth a visit.

Russia

The photos of Masha Osipova http://www.mashaosipova.com/ give an interesting view into Russian daily life and vulnerable people. The serie of her great aunt was published on http://www.dejaap.nl/ and are moving,  intense and above all beautiful.

Zaans

Zaandam started a huge inner city transformation about 10 years ago, today some of the buildings from Sjoerd Soeters masterplan are finished. The typical Zaanse huisjes perfectly fit Soeters portfolio. The piling- up of the original huisjes designed by WAM make a incredible landmark!

social mapping

Maps by Eric Fischer 

Erik Fischer creates interesting maps combining city layouts with social media; his maps and much more can be found here http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/  With the maps he shows the use of space by tourists versus local people or the use of the city by different ethnicities. These are just 2 examples, I'm sure that many more interesting combinations can be found!

Photos made by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Since my master thesis in 2006 about shrinking cities (Liverpool, Glasgow & Rotterdam) I’m fascinated by the impact that rapid population decline has on cities. This series of photos made by http://www.marchandmeffre.com/  about downtown Detroit as printed in the Guardian today, gives a terrific impression of abandoned buildings and the decline of great post industrial cities.