Journeys
Moments worth standing in
Follow the line. Each stop names its period the way that place names it, and opens in the studio ready to go.
450 BCE · AchaemenidPersepolis on tribute dayDelegations climbing the Apadana stairs with gifts from twenty satrapies.Persepolis, IranLook back
120 CE · Classical antiquityA working morning in the ForumNot the ruin and not the ceremony: the Forum on an ordinary weekday.Rome, ItalyLook back
300 CE · Early ClassicThe avenue of the deadA city of a hundred thousand, and nobody yet knows what they called it.Teotihuacan, MexicoLook back
1100 · SongKaifeng on market dayThe Song capital along the river, the busiest city in the world at the time.Kaifeng, ChinaLook back
1200 · Angkor and the classical statesAngkor before the forestWaterworks and causeways at their height, three centuries before it emptied.Angkor, CambodiaLook back
1250 · MamlukCairo between the two palacesThe market strung along the ceremonial way the Fatimids laid out.Cairo, EgyptLook back
1300 · Great ZimbabweGreat Zimbabwe at its heightDry stone walls without mortar, and cattle herds on the granite hills.Great Zimbabwe, ZimbabweLook back
1350 · Mali empireTimbuktu when the caravans cameSalt in, gold out, and a book trade starting at the desert edge.Timbuktu, MaliLook back
1420 · MingBeijing, the year the palace openedA new capital finished to the inch, its walls still pale.Beijing, ChinaLook back
1450 · RenaissanceThe merchants’ hall at YorkTimber, cloth and company business under one of England’s great roofs.York, EnglandLook back
1500 · PostclassicTenochtitlan from the causewayA lake city of canals and floating fields, seen from the road across the water.Tenochtitlan, MexicoLook back
1550 · RenaissanceVenice from the waterWarehouses, workshops and shipping, at the last of the republic’s long reach.Venice, ItalyLook back
1600 · Azuchi–MomoyamaKyoto at the dawn of the Edo eraA rebuilt grid busy again, after a century of war.Kyoto, JapanLook back
1660 · Age of sailAmsterdam on the new canalsA ring of water dug on purpose, with the houses barely finished.Amsterdam, NetherlandsLook back
1700 · Safavid and OttomanThe great square at IsfahanPolo ground, market and mosque sharing one enormous rectangle.Isfahan, IranLook back
1800 · EdoEdo at the fish marketBefore dawn at Nihonbashi, in a city of over a million.Tokyo, JapanLook back
1869 · IndustrialWhere the rails met at PromontoryTwo railroads, one continent, and a crowd standing on the sleepers.Promontory Summit, Utah, United StatesLook back
1875 · Qajar and late OttomanIstanbul across the Golden HornCaiques, ferries and the bridge, with the old city on the far bank.Istanbul, TürkiyeLook back
1900 · Modern eraParis at the expositionElectric light along the Seine for fifty million visitors.Paris, FranceLook back
1927 · IndustrialNew York building upwardSteel frames going up faster than anyone could name them.New York, United StatesLook back
1960 · ModernBrasilia before anyone moved inA finished capital on empty plateau, waiting for its first commuters.Brasília, BrazilLook backLook back at one and it carries your own picture from then on.21 journeys · 15 places