Nishino reinvests cities with wonder (and not incidentally cites 18th-century cartographer Inō Tadataka, who also did his surveys on foot, as an influence). Streets bustle, buildings tilt and sway (perhaps only an earthquake-sensitive Japanese could portray cities perched so precariously on the Earth). The old Cubists would have adored these maps: we look up while looking down; we look down… and see the sky. Nishino’s giddy maps remind us that cities, for all their giddy chaos, are at the core miraculous human achievements.

Text by William A Ewing