Wallpaper City Guides: Stylish, Unconventional Looks Inside Great Cities

Travel Blog  •  Frank Bures  •  11.10.06 | 1:05 PM ET

imageIt’s not often that a publisher churns out a new guidebook worth mentioning. But the design and travel magazine Wallpaper has just come out with some beautiful little guides highlighting stylish sides of a wide range of cities, from Bangkok to Barcelona and Singapore to Stockholm. Each guide includes photos that feel real yet also alluring (in other words, no mundane close-ups of vegetables and market women). Each book has a 24-hour guide, an “Urban Life” section, an “Architour” and a few other unique features.

The Bangkok city guide, for example, has a small selection of skyline landmarks that other guidebooks don’t bother with, like the State Tower, the CAT building and the Dusit Thani, while the Bangkok Architour takes you to the Elephant Tower and the Bed Supper Club, an entire restaurant that can be moved on a truck. Such photos are not comprehensive, but they’re fascinating for those of us who love architecture, and if you choose to seek out these landmarks, you’ll wander happily off the beaten path.

Likewise, the Mexico City guide has everything from the Torre Latinamericano, the city’s first skyscraper, to the ornate 1907 Palacio Postal.

The Rome guide includes the usual ruins, but also modern landmarks like the Palazzo delle Poste all’ Aventino and the Jubilee Church.

You’ll want a conventional guidebook if you’re actually visiting these cities, but these are the first guidebooks I’ve seen that have captured the places enough to really make you want to go there.

Tags: News and Briefs


1 Comment for Wallpaper City Guides: Stylish, Unconventional Looks Inside Great Cities

boston news 11.16.06 | 2:30 PM ET

I have always been fascinated by guide books presenting different countries. They offer the possibility to get to know a place with its beauties, and thus you have the feeling you are there, enjoying every minute of this mind travel.

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