CITIES, LIKE DREAMS

This publication accompanies the exhibition Cities, like dreams, presented at TEFAF Maastricht 2026 by Michael Hoppen Gallery and Daniel Crouch Rare Books. Conceived as both a record and an extension of the exhibition, the catalogue explores an unprecedented dialogue between enlightenment cartography and contemporary photography.

Through a series of carefully considered pairings, the project examines how urban landscapes are shaped as much by imagination as by design, tracing the evolving ways cities have been mapped, perceived, and remembered across time.

At its heart, Cities, like dreams juxtaposes monumental eighteenth-century town plans—icons of clarity and reason—with the intricate photographic dioramas of Japanese artist Sohei Nishino, whose works reconstruct cities through thousands of images taken on foot during his long, intuitive wanderings. The result is a poetic conversation between past and present, mapping and memory, geometry and emotion.

The catalogue presents exceptional cartographic masterworks including John Rocque’s vast Plan of London (1746); Louis Bretez and Michel-Étienne Turgot’s bird’s-eye Plan de Paris (1739); Bernard Ratzer’s Plan of New York (1767); Suharaya Mohe’s Map of Edo (Tokyo, eighteenth century); Ludovico Ughi’s meticulous plan of Venice (1729); Daniel Stalpaert’s Platte-Grondt van de Oude en Nieuwe Royingeder Stat Amsterdam (1720); Samuel von Schmettau’s Kupferkarte von Berlin (1748); and Giovanni Battista Nolli’s groundbreaking Pianta Grande di Roma (1748). Each represents a triumph of Enlightenment craftsmanship and rationality—a vision of the city as ordered, knowable, and complete.

Expanding upon the juxtapositions presented at TEFAF, this catalogue explores these dialogues in greater depth, offering further context and reflection on the relationship between cartography, perception, and urban memory. The publication also includes an accompanying essay by Lucy Fleming-Brown.