Invisible cities

Have you read "Invisible cities" by Italo Calvino?

I know it's fiction, and therefor falls outside your typical sphere of acceptable reading material. But it's a pretty wonderful book.
The title alone though, is enough to kind of get you thinking...Actually I'm also reading "The Architecture of happiness" right now. By Alain De Botton. It's ok. But there are some outstanding little observations that tie in pretty well to the whole concept of invisible cities...the interpretation of space and the impressions we get from our surroundings.
For example, this astute little observation:

"Belief in the significance of architecture is premised on the notion that we are, for better of worse, different people in different places."
and the existential aestheticist in me likes this:
"an ugly room can coagulate any loose suspicions about the incompleteness of life"

The association with invisible cities is the(obvious)one that we all interpret things differently at different times under different circumstances.
The role that architecture plays in our lives seems directly related to our susceptibility to the influence of our surroundings. When i first got to korea I was overwhelmingly impressed with minute differences of scale...tiny differences like the height to width ratio of doors, roads, windows...light posts etc. The physical fabric of the world had been shifted slightly and it interfered with all aspects of my life.
In another part of "the architecture of happiness" he says "you are inconveniently vulnerable to the color of your wallpaper"
Do you feel vulnerable to the color of your wallpaper?
Do you feel like your life, mood, state of mind, productivity...whatever, is influenced much by your surroundings?

It's not a new, but it's an interesting observation.
If you create something for others...what do you want them to gain from it?
If you create something for yourself...what do you want to gain from it?


you enter the city the first time and it's new.
you leave and come back and it's different.
you get a new job and the city is cheaper.
you take up cycling and the city is fast.
you give up your car and the city is noisy.
you stop smoking and the city is pungent.
you move to the 33rd floor and the city flattens out.
you fall in love and the city is vibrant.
you fall out of love and the city grows dull.

Perspective, you know...
ok, I'm rambling...hope you have a good trip to Seattle.

But one more thing:
The city of Ersilia is my favorite...it's such a beautiful concept.

In Ersilia, to establish the relationships that sustain the city's life, the inhabitants stretch strings from the corners of the houses...according to [the type of relationships.] When the strings become so numerous that you can no longer pass among them, the inhabitants leave; the houses are dismantled; only the strings and their supports remain.

They rebuild Ersilia elsewhere... Then they abandon it and take themselves and their houses still farther away.

Thus, when traveling in the territory of Ersilia, you come upon the ruins of the abandoned cities... spiderwebs of intricate relationships seeking a form.