Are We Still Building New Cities?

New Capital: Building Cities From Scratch is a fascinating photo book that Nick Hannes created to recount the emergence of six new capital cities in as many countries around the world — Egypt, Korea, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, and Brazil. 

Is there anything more immediate than an image to showcase how cities are changing? Social phenomena, contradictions, new trends, iconic places. A well-done photo can say a lot about an urban environment and about the people who inhabit it. In New Capital, Hannes adopts an unexplored perspective to highlight contradictions and critical issues about recent development operations that have reshaped cities in the world.

His work blends photographic research and anthropological investigation to underline how city making approaches can steal personality and identity from cities in some emerging countries.