I absolutely agree that every city should be doing something like this, but disagree completely that ‘every city… should hire’ [via BLDGBLOG] Packard Jennings and Steve Lambert. Their illustrative style speaks West Coast to me, and wouldn’t translate well to say a place like Detroit or Iowa City, for example. The whole art-in-bus-kiosks thing is also nothing new – Bob Hansman has been running City Faces in my hometown of St. Louis for over a decade now, which gives inner-city kids (mostly Black youth, not white professional illustrators) a chance to express themselves in bus stop lightboxes.
The images are also somewhat outdated: the Mobile office building concept was first popularized in The Crimson Permanent Assurance, care of Terry Gilliam. I also understand those underground motorways are supposed to give the five bicyclists up top a little more comfort (which I agree with for probably completely separate reasons!), but underground motorways are nothing new to Moscow!
Still! I love the playfulness of the project and do wish I ran into more works like this in public spaces in all the cities I visit and the one I live in. But, San Francisco, I’m sorry there’s especially one reason you and I will never get along, and I think you know what I’m talking about.
