Manhattan Within [Box set] [Hardcover]

Matteo Pericoli (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 7, 2003

Matteo Pericoli began his spectacular drawing of Manhattan in 1998. Manhattan Unfurled was published in October 2001 and was quickly embraced by New York City and the entire country. In this new version for young people, the drawing is bound into two sections (East Side and West Side) in an unusual and eye-catching new format. Pericoli adds simple text, and hand-drawn labels, telling young readers how he came to create his drawing (the journey includes boat rides, a motorcycle, and hundreds of photographs). He also enourages kids to see—and draw—a place in a whole new way. “Draw everything,” he tells them, “and you’ll know a place as you never did before.” A wonderful tribute to Manhattan, to cities, and to thinking like an artist.

Praise for Matteo Pericoli’s Manhattan Unfurled (Random House adult trade):

“Pericoli has fixed a moment of the ever-shifting skyline, and done so with delicacy and authority.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Pericoli’s drawing is at once monumental and gentle . . . together the buildings seem almost to be swaying softly in a chorus line along the Hudson.”—The New Yorker

“Seen through [Pericoli’s] eyes, Manhattan takes on the quality of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are.”—Vogue

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

As in his previous book, "Manhattan Unfurled," Pericoli starts with a long strip of paper, folded accordion style, and renders an idealized view of a New York skyline with colored pencils and a subtle palette of oil pastels. The previous panorama showed the skyline as it appears from the water; this time his imaginary vantage point is inside Central Park. Rising above a thick green smudge representing the trees, the buildings on the four sides of the park are drawn with architectural rigor and Steinbergian whimsy. "From the park all the buildings seem to look at me," Pericoli writes. "When I was working on the skyline along the edge of the island, they were giving their backs to me as if they didn't care."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

From Booklist

Pericoli is an Italian-born and -trained architect who now lives in New York City--and obviously adores his adopted hometown. His architectural illustrations have appeared in the New Yorker and the New York Times , and his book Manhattan Unfurled, which appeared not long after September 11, was a stunning tour de force--a set of two 22-foot-long black-and-white drawings, which opened out accordion-style, of the East and West Sides of Manhattan. Now he presents another 22-foot-long drawing, this one in color, which also unfurls accordion-style, giving an astonishing 360-degree view of the Manhattan skyline as viewed from inside Central Park. With the drawing comes a small but quite moving journal that Pericoli kept during his creation of this stunning piece of art. His prose, as it turns out, is as evocative as his art. Besides pondering the technical issues of rendering the piece as he conceived it, he also reflects on Central Park's place in Manhattan life and how to understand the city's power over even the briefest visitor. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 52 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (October 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375508686
• ISBN-13: 978-0375508684
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 8.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,386,134 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Matteo Pericoli is an architect, author and illustrator.
His books have been published by Random House, Knopf, Chronicle and, in 2009, by Simon & Schuster. His work also appeared in The New Yorker magazine, The New York Times, Farrar Straus & Giroux and Rizzoli among others.
From 1996 through 2000, he worked as project architect of the Jubilee Church in Tor Tre Teste (Rome, Italy) in Richard Meier's studio.

In Progress:
- London Unfurled (Picador, London, Fall 2011 - Summer 2012)

Completed work:
- The City Out My Window: 63 Views on New York (Simon & Schuster, November 3, 2009)
- Manhattan Unfurled (Random House, 2001)
- Manhattan Within (Random House, 2003)
- See the City: the Journey of Manhattan Unfurled (Knopf for Young Readers, 2004)
- To the 5 Boroughs, Beastie Boys (Capitol Records, 2004)
- New York e altri disegni (Quodlibet, 2005)
- The True Story of Stellina ( Knopf for Young Readers, 2006)
- Skyline of the World, American Airlines terminal (JFK, 2007)
- World Unfurled (Chronicle Books, 2008)
- Tommaso and the Missing Line (Knopf for Young Readers, 2008)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inside Manhattan, December 6, 2003

By 

"isabel3" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Manhattan Within (Hardcover)

The skyline depicted in Manhattan Within is truly amazing. I live in New York City and yet the only skyline I had ever considered was the "outer" one. Pericoli's book takes you on a 360 degree journey inside (or rather "outside" as he explains in his text) the the heart of Manhattan from the perspective of Central Park. All of the buildings -drawn freehand- dance and float upon a cloud of green trees. The colors and techniques used to convey this intimate perspective of the city are incredible.
As Pericoli explains in his text, the park by itself is beautiful, however it is the juxtaposition of the city with the park that makes it magical. His description of a sunset, reflecting on the windows as seen from inside Central Park, is poetic.
In Manhattan Within, every building has a distinct personality and seems alive. The artist's text -in a journal format- complements beautifully this truly unique illustration book.