The Müuse Atlas

Looks

Areas grouped by what the buildings and streets physically are, rather than by where they are.

Civic and monumental

Columns, broad steps, stone facades and open plazas. Courthouses, museums, libraries, government blocks and the squares they face.

High rise

Towers in glass, stone or concrete, with the street below in shadow for most of the day and the sky cut into pieces.

Industrial yards

Working ground rather than finished buildings. Rail spurs, container stacks, gravel, chain link, tanks and cranes.

Low rise residential

Detached and semi detached houses, two or three storeys, with porches, front yards, driveways and street trees.

Main streets

A commercial spine with storefronts at ground level and one or two floors above. Awnings, signage, parked cars at the kerb, and the buildings low enough to hold sky in the frame.

Market streets

Trade spilling onto the pavement. Stalls, crates, awnings, hanging goods and dense overlapping signage.

Rowhouse and terrace streets

Continuous runs of attached houses, brick or stucco, most of them built before the Second World War. Long matching facades, front steps, and almost no space between one house and the next.

Warehouse and loft blocks

Nineteenth and early twentieth century industrial buildings. Loading docks, freight doors, heavy cornices, and wide low streets.

Waterfront

Blocks that end at the water. Piers, bulkheads, beach or creek, and the streets that run down to them.