40 Awesome Futuristic City Illustrations
by Paulo Miranda on August 31st, 2009, 56 CommentsCities have always been a place where people share ideas and knowledge. I think this one of the reasons why cities have been inspiring artists to create many futuristic cityscapes illustrations.
I collected here some of these awesome sci-fi city illustrations. It would be very cool if you could suggest more great illustrations and artists to our list.
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John Alvin – johnalvin.com
James Paick – scribblepadstudios.com
Robert Brown – robertdbrown.com
Rob Sullivan – robsdesign.co.uk
Hideyoshi Ruwwe – hideyoshi-ruwwe.net
Nikita Buyanov – Portfolio
Felicity Moore – Portfolio
Nguyen Manh Hung – Portfolio
Ioan Dumitrescu – Portfolio
Eduardo Peña – Portfolio
Peter Ang – Portfolio
Christian Hecker – tigaer-design.com
Tiberius Viris – suirebit.net
Alex Popescu – alexpopescu.net
Andree Wallin – andreewallin.com
Dylan Cole – dylancolestudio.com
Seung Jin Woo – Portfolio
Marek Okon – Portfolio
Dmitry Zaviyalov – Portfolio
Saul Espinosa – artofsaul.com
Won-jun Tae – taegaconcept.com
Robin Olausson – Portfolio
Yann Souetre – yann-souetre.com
Stefan Morrel – Portfolio
Ilya Nedyal – Portfolio
August 31st, 2009 at 11:33 am
40 Awesome Futuristic City Illustrations – Zeemp Blog…
Great collection of futuristic city illustrations….
August 31st, 2009 at 12:34 pm
awesome is not the word man ! there are people who create this and there are others who make it visible ! long life ..
landscapeoutsourcing.com
August 31st, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Awesome futuristic arts. Very Inspirational
August 31st, 2009 at 11:02 pm
These move me.
September 1st, 2009 at 8:57 am
@chris @krittika @moinid Thanks for all the comments, you rock!
September 1st, 2009 at 10:40 am
true the works are of high quality and show a certain futuristic vision. Only I ask, is this inspiring and a place that speaks of meaning and beauty? Where does nature fit in to this vision? How do we blend technology into the natural so we don’t feel like we are simply neon lights and metal?
September 1st, 2009 at 5:34 pm
40 Awesome Futuristic City Illustrations…
Cities have always been a place where people share ideas. I think this one of the reasons why cities have been inspiring artists to create many futuristic cityscapes illustrations. I collected here some of these awesome sci-fi city designs.
…
September 1st, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Great collection of futuristic city illustrations….;. All the best!!
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:09 am
Thanks for putting it together. The patience and talent needed to create them are just as surreal as the images themselves.
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:35 am
Very sad to think that these might be future cityscapes, and that people spend their time imagining these horrific environments with dead sky and nothing green. If this comes to pass we will be living on a dead planet with no chance of reviving the natural world that we know, until man passes entirely from the scene. More than anything else this makes me realize how we need negative population growth for at least two generations to get us back down around 3 billion people from the current 7 billion. That is sustainable in the long run. What is represented here is a nightmare future, one I would not like to leave to my children.
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:38 am
Hi Tania,
It is hard to find artists who paint a more beautiful vision of the future. Art, like movies, games and illustrations usually produce more chaotic views of the future than the optimistic ones. I think it happens because they have a big impact to a broad audience.
I particular think that technology, nature and society can blend perfectly if we all work together for a better present and future. After all, the future never comes, we are always in the present.
You have given me a great idea, I will collect soon many illustrations of real city projects and the fictional ones too. Thanks a lot.
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:42 am
Mario, thanks for your comment. Yes, the illustrations are amazing!
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:53 am
Hi Dave, thanks for putting your ideas here.
I also would not like to live in such a future. I think Art have inspired many scientists to create really wonderful things that were sci-fi in another time. I think artists should create more optimistic visions of the future, so they can inspire scientists to create a better world. Artists should use science as background for the creations too.
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:08 am
The renderings were awesome, however, the cities with the exception of the ones on the water look dark and foreboding. Are these places for happy people to live, or something out of Batman. Artwork was exceptionsl.
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Some excellent art work here! Glad to see my former Art Center classmate Rob Brown’s work here as well.
While the designs here are visually stunning, most are indeed far from being an attractive future… except perhaps for the city along the tropical waters.
For those of you who’d like to see a more positive, green vision of the future, check out the work of Belgian architect and visionair Luc Schuiten: http://vegetalcity.net/
While less flashy (no CGI, no matte painting) it is a future I would much rather see come to reality.
September 2nd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
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September 2nd, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Hi Don, I would like to find more positive drawings, but I couldn’t. However, you can take a look on @Tom suggestion. Great Artwork! http://vegetalcity.net/
Tom, amazing suggestion, thanks a lot for sharing with us!
If someone knows artists who paint a more positive vision of the future, feel free to suggest, I will make another post with them, it is going to be cool. Glad if you can help me!
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:36 pm
[...] Awesome Futuristic City Illustrations” caught my attention. So I clicked. I went on to the Zeemp Blog and scrolled [...]
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:14 am
With one or two exceptions these cities consist of just metal, stone and glass. With cities (e.g., Chicago) literally going green–based on proven benefits, do these images capture the future of cities, or are they only awesome conceptions?
September 4th, 2009 at 12:41 am
this is some cool stuff….awesome!!!!!!
September 4th, 2009 at 1:38 am
The top one is the poster from the 1982 SciFi classic “Blade Runner” directed by Ridley Scott and featuring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and Sean Young (the woman in the poster). It was Scott’s breakthrough movie.
My fave one only because it’s my fave movie.
September 4th, 2009 at 1:39 am
Oh yeah, I like the ones that mix the old and the new. Gives a sense of realism.
September 4th, 2009 at 3:38 am
Very awesome indeed, but I was a little disappointed that you did not include the grandfather of all architectural futurists, Hugh Ferris.
http://thenonist.com/index.php/thenonist/permalink/hugh_ferriss_delineator_of_gotham/
September 4th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Let’s not forget Syd Mead…
His designs for Blade Runner set the standard for decades of Hollywood’s portrayal of dark, futuristic cities.
http://www.sydmead.com
September 4th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
[...] 40 Awesome Futuristic City Illustrations (blog.zeemp.com) [...]
September 6th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Marie Elizabeth, the images you mentioned in your blog post from the great artist Dylan Cole show a future I would love to live too. Very peaceful!
Ruth, It’s hard to predict which future we are going to live, because it depends of where in the world you live. There are cities in the world doing a great job for a better future. There are another ones which can’t even supply clean water to all their dwellers.
Lee, Thanks!
September 6th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Paul Conrad, Blade Runner is my favorite sci-fi movie too. The soundtrack by Vangelis is amazing too! I love The Matrix Trilogy too. The Nguyen Manh Hung illustration here represents the mix beautifully. It shows the tallest building in the world on the left (The Burj Dubai) and he adds another towers on the right of the illustration.
Hi Mike, I did not him. This is a great suggestion. Thanks.
Tom, thanks. His official illustrations for Blade Runner are awesome.
September 6th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
[...] 40 Awesome Futuristic City Illustrations (blog.zeemp.com) [...]
September 7th, 2009 at 2:19 am
Wonderful, wonderful artwork!!
But I agree, there’s not a lot of positive energy coming from these dark and smoggy scenes.
And it’s also sad that, collectively, the future cities look the same. Cultural identity is almost gone.
September 7th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Hi Carver, you’re entirely right.
September 8th, 2009 at 8:18 am
[...] 40 Awesome Futuristic City Illustrations [...]
September 9th, 2009 at 2:27 am
Awesome cities? No, just awesome paintings.
Would you like to live in any of theses cities?
I rather not.
September 9th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
I’m just scared about this future. Do you imagine a Caribbean Island full of penthouses? Or the 90% Alaskas nature invaded from the “bad” technology?
I don’t want a future like this for my children. NO !! Stop trying to make humanity understand that this will be a perfect world full of “machines” etc. etc.
Technology is our best army. But we should think about how to do this world resistant, not just build & build & build..& destroy the nature aso.
Completely against a future like this illustrations. The world is the world, Earth is Earth..& games, games are !! Thank you !!
September 9th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Roman and Igor,
I did not say “Awesome Cities”, instead I said “Awesome City Illustrations”, there is a big difference. I agree with you, this is not a future to live. But, unfortunately, there are cities in the present that are worst than that.
Thanks a lot.
September 12th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Vistas futuristas
September 12th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Muy bien, veamos la realidad
September 14th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
[...] we observed in the early 40 Awesome Futuristic City Illustrations, designers usually portrayed dark city visions in their illustrations. However, many of you want to [...]
October 1st, 2009 at 5:17 pm
the one from nikita buyanov is awesome.
it’s not too distant future is what makes it interesting.
kudos.
October 1st, 2009 at 5:22 pm
[...] 40 Awesome Futuristic City Illustrations [...]
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:02 am
Love the more positive while plausible ones. The dead steel or smog ones seem a little pessimistic but some of those later ones, like that one on the coast, are lovely. Incredible collection.
October 6th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
@robb and @ken,
Glad you liked my post. I love when I find plausible visions of the future too. The image in the post from Nguyen Manh Hung is not so far away too. Actually, he just added some buildings to Dubai skyline.
Ken, at least, the pessimistic ones show us how the future shouldn’t be.
Thanks!
October 11th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Wonderful artwork! Much thought and composition went into these paintings. They all deserve raves.
Contrary to what most people are led to believe about population exploding, thorough research is now showing that population will peak around 9 billion in the near future, but drastically fall off. Already Spain, Netherlands, the US and many other countries have very large groups of older and elderly and lesser groups of teens and infants. China experiences lack of females and has dropped its limit of children per family. Japan’s future will be quite underpopulated due to it’s now overpopulation of elderly and looks to immigrants for future population. Who will fill all those buildings?
Now, imagine future cities with smaller population, more natural greens, bigger sky and floral landscapes, although I do have to say the larger, metal, busier clogged and complicated city works are more interesting to view.
October 16th, 2009 at 11:39 am
@lunaursus Thanks a lot for the very useful information in your comment.
October 20th, 2009 at 2:15 am
its funny how that one of new york has like a 2005 honda crv in it..
hahah
October 25th, 2009 at 12:22 am
So the future has no trees, grass, wild animals, nothing !!! Haha, very creative artwork though, thanks
October 25th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Bill, yes! This is one of my favorites.
Vic, I agree with you, artists usually portray a dark vision of the future.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:42 am
The idea of a future city has always boggled the minds of architects, planners, painters and thinkers. Usually, in the past, the thoughts of architects have been influenced by these kind of illustrations- some of it we can see are coming true in various parts of the world today. There is nothing wrong with making one of these tall consolidated cities- i mean think about how much travel time, fuel and energy one saves;but yes if we want to build such kind of buildings it will then become necessary for us to preserve nature in it’s purest form completely out of these cities so that at least there is a balance between the two.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Hi Vaishali,
I totally agree with you. There are many green visionaries that don’t like these tall buildings. I love them. Today. it is possible to build a green skyscraper.
The height competition is very good because it brings new engineering breakthroughs that may benefit other areas of the technology too.
November 26th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Where are the people?
November 29th, 2009 at 2:46 am
Hi Brad, you are right! There are not many people in those illustrations. But you can find them in these collections:
http://blog.zeemp.com/2009/10/15/60-beautiful-oriental-style-artworks/
http://blog.zeemp.com/2009/10/07/100-wonderful-battle-art-illustrations/
Thanks
December 7th, 2009 at 3:50 am
Albeit that all these pieces are great, they are utopian. In most of these images the true face of the future is lacking. Most show no, or very little, advertising.
Now if you look at the movie Blade Runner, that depicts a more feasible image of the future city. Gross commercialisation of every possible surface, massive overpopulation, dirt and more dirt, and dependence on cheap, easily available food sources.
Pollution.
Take Hong Kong at it’s worst and multiply the badness by 100. Then you will have cities 100 years from now.
December 9th, 2009 at 2:27 am
Jucedupp,
It is hard to predict what is going to happen 100 years from now. There will be great places to live and awful ones too. It all depends on how we treat the environment.
Thanks for commenting.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:04 am
Hey check this link for a futuristic green city
http://www.greenmuze.com/build/design/638-futuristic-green-city.html
and this too
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/10/15/editt-tower-by-trhamzah-and-yeang/
December 14th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
WOW. This is a superior and wonderful collection of drawings. However they are a little sad.
December 15th, 2009 at 4:59 am
Hi @Catthi, thanks for commenting, it is not easy to find optimistic illustrations of the future.
However, @Hypnotic found out really cool examples.
January 5th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
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