Scents of the City

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All too often, the smells and flavors of a city are simple, sad, monotonous, or uniform. Then again, they can be as overwhelming as cheap perfume. In spite of these extremes--or perhaps because of them--the smells of the city are hardly ever noticed. Sometimes, however, the flaneur 's nose catches a surprising freshness, a breeze bearing the merest traces of a scent which captivates our sense and turns everyday banality into poetry. Scents of the City is Ruedi Baur and Isabelle Naegele's collection of samples and patterns found in a wide range of public spaces throughout the world of cities. The result of a multi-year obsession, Scents of the City reveals a dense collection which, for the artists, denotes a "city the flavor of which is so difficult to describe with words." Examples are taken from a wide range of cities, both large and small, and the differences between cities are further expressed through the use of multiple languages, with short texts appearing in Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, English, French, and German.Paperback, 4.75 x 6.5 in./448 pgs / 1000 color.