architectural what-if's

Torri di Firenze

‘Medieval Florence, that of Dante, had 150 towers littering its skyline. Amazing as the sight must have been, I spent three months in Florence and found little drawn evidence. In 1300 a law was passed which decreed that all towers were to be taken down, the material being used to build the outer ring of city walls. They had been the breeding ground for fighting between rival families. But what if they had remained? I made this drawing, Torri di Firenze, which seeks to represent how modern day Florence may have looked if the towers had remained’

Photograph: Anna Gibb