Ryu Itadani's Covers

Today I noticed that two city-related magazines feature covers with illustrations by Ryu Itadani:


[Monocle #45 and City Journal Autumn 2011 covers| image source]

Issue 45 of Monocle, which highlights the magazine's annual Quality of Life survey, features a generic yet colorful city scene with a playground in the foreground, low buildings in the middle, and tall building beyond. I'm guessing it's an assemblage of the different merits people mention in the survey.

City Journal's Autumn 2011 issue, on the other hand, features an illustration that is clearly New York City, if reassembled much differently than reality. The Solomon R. Guggenheim museum sits front and center, flanked by the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Times Square, Hearst Tower, the Flatiron Building, and others. The Empire State and Chrysler Buildings tower over the whole.

Maybe I'm drawn to these after seeing all the dark, computer-generated cities that predominate eVolo Skyscrapers, which I reviewed the other day. Itadani's bright and vibrant city representations are happy and optimistic scenes. Regardless they are also equally fictional, in the way they piece together buildings (the needle from Berlin, Itadani's current home can be found on the left side of Monocle) into new wholes.