Friday, July 25, 2008

matapalo

















matapalo city plan

Saturday, December 1st 2001

pacifica

Saturday, August 28th 1999.

caribia

Friday, March 19th 1999.
After my interest in mid-sized towns I began gaining more curiosity in worldwide geography and bigger cities. Somehow I also missed my birthplace and generally dreamed about going back. My wish was to see a homogeneity of cities throughout all of Costa Rica and not only a concentration of metropolitan areas within the central valley. "Wouldn't it be great to have an important metropolis on the ocean side?" I'd tell myself. At first I thought of building Caribia, on the Caribbean coast. However I knew such a city would have to grow over a multitude of national parks and protected natural rainforest areas. Besides I wanted to see the biggest city far from the central valley, so the southeast Pacific seemed like the perfect spot to develop Pacifica. Its evoquative name would not be taken from the Pacific Ocean but contrarely meant the Ocean would belong to the city.

Thursday, July 24, 2008


my passion for cities: the beginning

In 1994, at nine years old, I moved to Burtigny, Switzerland, a little farm town far from any important place one can think of. It is built along a second-class highway and has a population of about three hundred people. I must say at first it seemed awesome to live in the countryside but I quickly realized that my expectations did not exactly correspond to the reality of the place.

I guess as a child it's normal to have a wild imagination, especially when it comes to inventing or building things. I know this applies in my case, as I was always passionate about wanting to change things in the small town of Burtigny. It started with a farm road, which a friend and I wanted to give an urban touch to, by painting street signals onto it (we obviously ended up grounded for doing it). Another time we placed street signs, that we either found or made, in specific spots of the village to give it a more "cityish" atmosphere.

However, little did I know that this hunger for change was going to have a huge impact later on. Noticing the lack of power I had to change things on the one to one scale, I could on the other hand do a lot on paper. And this was the beginning of my city scenarios. Little by little I started putting my ideas on paper, where they could clearly be identified. Surely I ended up inventing my own towns and developing them as I would of liked to develop Burtigny at the time.

I think most of the things we do are linked to our personality or identity. For instance my desire to transform an insignificant town during my childhood had to do with who I was and where I was settled. An engine to my motivation was the fact that I was competing with the nearest villages, which all had something more than Burtigny. My town was the smallest, so as a resident I also wanted it to have all the conveniences the others had and of course show the world that the place I called home wasn’t only a few farms and barns.

welcome / bienvenido / bienvenue

Welcome to Esteban Coto's blog! Here you will find some ideas & illustrations about cities and perhaps more specifically about Costa Rican urban space.

Bienvenido al blog de Esteban Coto! En esta área encontraran ideas e ilustraciones sobre el tema de las ciudades y tal vez más específicamente sobre el espacio urbano en Costa Rica.

Bienvenue au blog de Esteban Coto! Dans cet espace vous trouverez des idées et illustrations concernant le thème de la ville et plus spécialement l'espace urbain costaricien.