The making of

TAMARA
 Introduction
Invisible Cites
For our first project, we were asked to create concept art using excerpts from Italo Calvino’s ”Invisible
Cities”. It is a book exploring imagination and the imaginable through the descriptions of cities by the
explorer Marko Polo. Published in 1972, it describes 55 fictitious cities in poems, cities narrated by Polo,
with many of them being read as parables or meditations on culture, language, time, memory, death, or the
general nature of human experience.
The original 13th-century travelogue shares with Calvino's novel the brief, often fantastic accounts of the
cities Polo claimed to have visited, along with descriptions of the city's inhabitants, notable imports and
exports, and any interesting tales Polo had heard about the region.
Marco describes the cites in 9 chapters, every city having a woman’s name. They are divided into eleven
thematic groups of five each. Marco moves back and forth between the groups, in a rigorous mathematical
structure and he moves down the list.
The matrix of eleven column themes and fifty-five subchapters shows some interesting properties. Each
column has five entries, rows only one, so there are fifty-five cities in all. The matrix of cities has a central
element. The pattern of cities is symmetric with respect to inversion about that centre. Equivalently, it is
symmetric against 180 degree rotations about the central element. Inner chapters have diagonal cascades
of five cities. These five-city cascades are displaced by one theme column to the right as one proceeds to
the next chapter. In order that the cascade sequence terminates of cities is Calvino, in chapter 9, truncates
the diagonal cascades in steps: Laudomia through Raissa is a cascade of four cities, followed by cascades of
three, two, and one, necessitating ten cities in the final chapter. The same pattern is used in reverse in
chapter 1 as the diagonal cascade of cities is born. This strict adherence to a mathematical pattern is
characteristic of the Oulipo literary group to which Calvino belonged.
 Influences
Sine Tamara is a city that is mostly based
on shapes to remain in people’s memory, I
searched different objects that could help
me depict some of its most crucial
characteristics.
I was drawn to the goddess medusa, and
searched combinations of colors that would
strike the eye. Also, some Columns to form
the inside of one of the city’s temples -or
more- and building references to make the
city play in between the lines of modern
and vintage.
Exterior Shot
Thumbnails
Final Designs
Exterior shots
 Final Designs
Interior and low angle shot