animecomplete

meredithmary:

Ok, so if you saw Uncovered FFXV, you would have seen this glorious locations trailer -

Ok, so I almost have an Architectural Studies degree, and I’m an urban history nerd. Cities are my jam. This really got my geek juices flowing with so much to talk about, so I took some screenshots, made some gifs, and now lets get down to business.

This is Lestallum. It is a coastal town that’s to be one of the main hubs for the first part of the game. It draws its energy from a meteorite, that has been there since the dawn of time in this world. Inspiration has been drawn from Havana, Cuba, the Caribbean and Malaysia, which can be clearly seen in the friendly, informal nature of the place.

This above image, I digress, is not mine but from here. I have to assume that large landmark in the back is some kind of power station surrounding the meteorite. And this above would be the main boulevard. Looking at this street, there’s a lot of life - food carts, dogs in the street, street dining - but also a lot of irregularity. buildings jut in at different amounts, façades clash, cables fly across overhead. This main street would have formed organically, rather than by a comprehensive masterplan, by individuals not planners. The street would be where it is due to the fact that it only made sense to have a road on the shortest direct route from the cities main landmark to the sea. An opposite would be something like the Haussmanisation of Paris. Swathes of the city were destroyed to widen boulevards and line them with uniform buildings with clear lines of site between important cultural and political landmarks (this is what I suspect Niflheim will be like.) The opposite suggests that the people of Lestallum have, or at least for the majority of their history have had, autonomy. it could also mean that the government has a rather laissez-faire attitude, which could mean poor treatment of the poor behind the scenes. But from what I see I think we have a city, which is slightly disorganised and messy, but free and happy.

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While looking at this as yet unnamed place, the first question that we should think is why? For a city to have been built in such an inhospitable, inaccessible place, it must have been one of three reasons - money, faith or war. Maybe there was some kind of ore? Maybe this site was believed to be the home of a god? Maybe historically, pre flight,  it was impervious to enemy attacks? Its hard to see the architecture, but its definitely not defensive, and seems more ecclesiastical than anything else. My moneys on the being the spiritual home of an astral. There however is the possibility that it wasn’t inaccessible because the railways came first but this seems unlikely.

The canopies in the station themselves show clear art nouveau influences. they were inspired my naturalistic forms, and more specifically, by some rather fabulous buildings in Paris and Brussels. If the architectural timeline in the game is at all similar to earth, I would date this station at 100-150 years old.  

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This is a roadside rest stop. There is a critical difference between highway architecture and regular city architecture, and it is that highway architecture is designed to be seen from a great speed without interaction. General speaking, size of roadside signage and advertising can be seen to correlate with the speed of the passing traffic. So what we see here is one very big sign. But this can also carry on into the architecture itself. The building itself has an odd and eye-catching design, acting as another giant sign. But its cleverer than this. The shape of building means that the whole time you are driving past it, you see the same shape. You don’t just see the front as you drive right past, but the building, the same silhouette from as soon as you start approaching to the point when you are looking back at it. This single building, as much as any of the fancy cities, proves that the environmental designers know exactly what they’re doing.

To Come in Part 2, (otherwise this would be far to long a post)

Altissa, Insomnia, scary industrial stuff, and other stuff.

I might also do a thing looking at all the different modes of transport.