A Fictional Map

Last year I was contacted by a client looking for a very special birthday present; a map of a fictional city made of meaningful places for her boyfriend and for them as a couple. Almost like a biographical map.

What you see here is the result of hours of hard work, research and intense client-artist feedback cemented on an A2 print, made of several hand-drawn and very detailed inked drawings which were coloured and pieced together using computer software.

The idea, although daunting at first was soon followed by awe. What a great chance to create something I had been toying with for a long time, designing a completely made up town from scratch; not fanciful but bound by a pre-defined set of rules and a relative logic.

The process would be long and slow but a method was eventually developed successfully and can now be used in similar commissions. After an initial geographical brainstorm, the landmark list was narrowed down to the most symbolic. The next step had the client supplying screen captures of maps which I then isolated and turned into puzzle pieces. I juggled with these for hours during one of the most intense parts of the process until I came out with the first few roughs of the map.

First rough of the map

Because of the variety of landmarks mentioned –towns, cities, states and whole countries– I had to find a foundation to begin building on; a place that helped merge all these seemingly random places together. Not because it was a requirement but because I wanted to create something one would look at and think real until closer inspection. Then the map would slowly reveal impossible connections between real locations thousands of miles apart from each other. Almost like a geographical Frankenstein.

At this stage I was looking at old maps, from early depictions of American land woven on tapestries hanging from the walls of the Royal Alcazar in Seville to Victorian maps travellers could buy at train stations. Most of the landmarks were coastal or had rivers nearby and all that water and urban pockets made me think of Stockholm, which I visited a few summers ago and absolutely loved. An archipelago city, a system of islands and interconnected waterways where there is room for big chunks of developed land and road transportation – unlike a purely water-based city, like Venice for example. 

Stockholm network of fourteen islands

With that in mind I chose New York's Manhattan island as this city's centre and basing on its surroundings I built around it, piecing in all these territories intuitively or in a way that made some sense visually. Once the jigsaw was completed I then followed with planning urban patches and roads, which are based on real infrastructures. All around it are the drawings of buildings they have lived in, studied, worked or that bear a deeper meaning. These are colour-coded and relate to the shapes on the map which mark boundaries of the places referenced.

The map is intended to open up its meaning slowly, and most importantly to the client's close circle. However, I want to think that some of these landmarks are common to anyone well-traveled and hopefully it will also make sense to those outside this particular world.

The realism of the map is questionable but I like to think that it challenges our knowledge of how nature works. It would be interesting to have a geologist challenge its organicity and confirm wether or not is blatantly man made. Interestingly though, the map bears an old feel that gives it a certain legitimacy. 

Map tapestry in Seville's Royal Alcazar

A Map of Soho

This map of Soho was commissioned by estate agents Greater London Properties. Proudly based in Broadwick Street as the only property shop front in Soho, they wanted a vibrant vision of London's renowned entertainment district that would encapsulate the energy and diversity of an area they have operated in for more than 10 years and have an unrivalled knowledge of.

Together we sat down and went over key moments of its exciting history. From its beginnings as a failed urban development for the 18th Century's wealthiest to the dazzling culture hotspot that is today, without ignoring its recent past as London's notorious red light district.


We then picked a few from a myriad of interesting characters that at some point lived there and, in a bit of a surrealist effort, related them to some of Soho's most popular buildings. Thus, with my bicycle and camera I set out on an exhaustive journey through its labyrinthine streets and crooked alleys.

From the barren to the tourist-barricaded corners I took tons of photos of facades, pieced them together and drew over them to create these quirky characters.

Carnaby Street as Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles' milestone album added a sound track to the commercial epicentre of psychedelic Swinging London.

The John Snow Pub as Himself – even scientists drink beer, especially when 'someone' has dismantled the local water pump.

Brewer Street Car Park as Paul Raymond – one's got to park the car somewhere before a long night out in neighbouring Revue Bar.

The Windmill Club as a Can Can Dancer – these dancers could only legally perform naked as tableaux vivants.

St Anne's Church as a Great War British soldier – it resurfaced from the ashes after being hit by a bomb during The Blitz.

Compton's of Soho as Casanova – the master of romantic suspense had fun in Soho too.

Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club as Himself – his saxophone solos still reverberate across Soho streets.

Bar Italia as a Barista – only Italians truly understand the alchemy of coffee making.

Old Foyles Bookshop as Karl Marx – philosophers buy their books somewhere.

The Palace Theatre as an Opera Valkyrie – nothing less than the consecrated home of British grand opera back in the time

Greater London Properties offices as a friendly property expert!

And to finish with, the A5 postcard of the map. 

Paris on Holidays / Berlin Loves Volkswagen

Here's my submission for the yearly competition that Spanish airline Vueling holds for the front and back cover of their inflight magazine Yorokobu. 

Since airlines are normally associated with travel, and it's normally people that do that, I asked myself what if buildings went on holiday? Moreover, what if the Eiffel Tower, epitome of France and all that's French, was to drift away on a patch of Paris down the Seine into the Mediterranean? Yes, it actually flows into the English Channel, the opposite side of Europe, but buildings don't eat paella either as far as I know. It should manage to bob past Gibraltar in the first place...

The back cover of Yorokobu is traditionally sponsored by Volkswagen so following up with random stuff I thought to myself 'Volkswagen is German. I like cities. The capital of Germany is Berlin. Berlin most definitely likes Volkswagen cars'. Let's turn the famous car manufacturers' logo into a map of Berlin! At its centre we will have the Brandenburg gate with West and East Berlin on either side and the Tiergarten at the top. Across the zigzagging river Spree, there will be Museum Island with the cathedral and the Bode and Altes museum. Encircling it, a ring of modern glass buildings and one of those famous German speed limitless motorways with iconic Volkswagen cars on an evolutionary race.

A Map Of Clerkenwell

Slightly North East from Central London, Clerkenwell is plenty of history and probably the most central area to join London's recent mass gentrification. Named after the Clerks' Well that still stands nearby –albeit enclosed within a building and behind a glass window– the area is linked to a long forgotten monastic past. A backdrop for historic characters of the likes of Oliver Cromwell –he owed a house there– Charles Dickens– a scene of his Oliver Twist is set in Clerkenwell Green– and Vladimir Lenin, who used to work at number 37a, now the Marx Memorial Library. 

This map stems off a commission that fell through, but that allowed me to explore and investigate the rich history behind an area that best reflects the old-village-absorbed-by-Victorian-metropolis feel. Find out more about Clerkenwell's living landmarks, starting clockwise from Angel. 

The clock tower built by J.D. Smith and Sons marks the entrance to The Angel in the Borough of Islington and its long strip of shops recalling an era of clockmaker business. 

Further down South there's Northampton Square where City University's main campus is. It houses the prestigious Inns of Court School of Law.

Due to being built on marshland St Luke's church laid abandoned for 40 years until it was refurbished into a music hall operated by the London Symphony Orchestra. 

Densely populated with web-based companies, Old Street Roundabout has been nicknamed Silicon Roundabout and is infamous among cyclists. 

Flanked by elegant early council housing, Whitecross Street livens up every Thursday and Friday at lunchtime with food stalls serving all sorts of delicious take aways. 

Hidden away off Moorgate, there's the Honourable Artillery Company's grounds, the second oldest military organisation in the world, now a charity. 

Designed by the same architects, the Golden Lane Estate is the forefather of the Barbican, notorious in its darkest times for suicides from the rooftop and now sought after 60s property. 

St John's Gate reminisces Clerkenwell's monastic past. It was the entrance to the priory of the Order of St John, the Knights Hospitaller. 

In Victorian times Smithfield Market, London's main meat market, was described as the most pestilent place in the capital. It still serves its original purpose, being the last surviving historic wholesale market in Central London. 

Next to Chancery Lane station still stands one of the few Tudor buildings to survive two of the toughest moments in London's history, the Great Fire and The Blitz. The Staple Inn, currently the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. 

When Farringdon Station opened in 1863 it was the terminus of the Metropolitan Railway, the first underground metro line in the world. 

The Medieval City of London had business organised in different quarters by trades. The area around Hatton Garden was and still is the jeweller's quarter and centre of the UK diamond trade.

Lively Leather Lane with its daily food market and its Edwardian tenement blocks, the Bourne Estate. When the working day is over cycle couriers gather up around the repair shop/cafe Full City.

The spiritual centre of Clerkenwell, the Green, is presided by the Old Sessions House, a Classical style building that was the centre of the judicial and administrative court of the County of Middlesex, mostly part of Greater London now. 

St Peter's Italian Church was built for the growing Italian immigrant community that settled here in the mid 19th Century and made this area London's Little Italy.

For centuries the ground of the Sadler's Wells theatre has been dedicated to performing arts and it is currently one of the UK's foremost dance venues.

A photo of an A4 print.