Leonardo Da Vinci’s ideal city is a study in flow. Viewing a wooden model the eye is pulled up ramps, across bridges, down wide lanes, along canals, and through verandas. For all that activity the model is relaxing to behold. The forms group but never crowd. There’s room to breathe. Symmetry is expertly deployed: lines calling out to parallel lines, archways arcing like choreographed dancers, foreground and background complementing and completing one another. The design was a response to the tight streets that had proved so hospitable to the black plague virus. I sense it could heal something in us today.
