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ArchiMaps, an app for iOS and Android, is a gift to architecture lovers everywhere. First launched in 2017, the app provides comprehensive guides to architecturally-significant buildings, bridges, and more around the world. ArchiMaps currently has 11 map guides, including seven maps focusing on global cities like New York, London, Barcelona, and Mexico City, and four maps highlighting the greatest hits of architects Eero Saarinen, Mies van der Rohe, Adolf Loos, and Antoni Gaudí. (For more architecture-minded travel inspiration, be sure to check out the Curbed guide to the world’s best design cities.)
The brainchild of Spanish architect Ángel Camacho, the project took a few years to come to fruition, both in finding a developer collaborator and preparing content for the first maps. In an email to Curbed, Camacho explained that he always begins with an extensive search for the most important buildings in each city, and then little by little layers on increasingly obscure works, aiming to strike a balance with architects, styles, and time periods.
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The app does exactly what you might expect: Open it up, choose a city, and see a zoomable map of over two hundred notable structures in each city, color-coded by time period and labeled with symbols representing different building types. Click on a specific point and get a photo of the work (you can also send in your own photo if none is available yet), plus basic info like the firm, year of completion, architectural style, and a handy link to the building’s Wikipedia page (saved you a step there!). You can see a list of all the buildings in the city, or filter by building type and sort by name and date.
Even cooler: The app comes preloaded with a handful of “ArchiRoutes” designed around specific themes. So you’ll find “Art Deco jewels” in New York City, “Frank Lloyd Wright masterpieces” in Chicago, “21st-Century Collection Housing” in Madrid, and “British Brutalism” in London. Happy architecture peeping!
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