Big thanks and congrats to the City Builder Book Club. It has been really great fun sketching along to Death and Life of Great American Cities for the past weeks.
My fave drawings ended up being the ones that make me laugh, like drawing Jane as a street ballerina was just silly and fun. I enjoyed that she also became a re-occurring character in other sketches. It seems fitting as well, since I have always enjoyed her writing style where she incorporates her personal story and experiences of place into the writing.
Re-reading the book, reminds me how many principles are still relevant some 50 years later, and why she still is on my ‘urbanist heroes’ list. I love Jane.
I’ve had never seen it before but there is a short note on “Illustrations” in the contents page. It seems the perfect way to end this drawing activity. As she writes -
Illustrations - The scenes that illustrate this book are all about us. For illustrations, please look closely at real cities. While you are looking, you might as well also listen, linger, and think about what you see
And thank you to you, Yen! So many of your drawings have made me laugh too, and made us think about the concepts in the book in a new way. One of my favorites was the pie park.
Thanks for contributing in such an awesome way!
Thanks for taking us along the journey. I’ve been tempted to re-read the book again myself, but don’t imagine I could provide illustrations as good as yours.
[...] City Love leaves us with congratulations and some final thoughts (and sketches!) about Death & Life [...]