City Plates by Not Neutral: Latest Collection Includes My Hometown

I’ve always loved these plates, but at $50 each, have never quite found the right excuse to buy one… or a set! Except that now my hometown of Montreal is included in the new Collection 5. So are 3 other major cities in which I have lived. Time for a little decorative-plate-as-art action.

For Not Neutral, it all started quite innocently when they introduced the Los Angeles commemorative plate at the 2006 American Institute of Architects Convention in June in… Los Angeles. The plates were met with grand acclaim and now, twenty plates and twenty cities later we have an metropolitan architectural anthology. Indeed, the cities in each plate collection are chosen for their very specific contribution to the architectural world.

For the City Plate Collection 5, it’s a Grand Vision theme.

The culmination of the notNeutral City Plate collection celebrates visionary thinking and takes a look at four great cities – Chicago, Paris, Montreal and Mumbai - and examines the past, present, and future of innovative architecture and design. Since the mid-19th century, the World’s Fair has been a breeding ground for innovations in architecture, civil & structural engineering, and infrastructure. Three cities who have been past World’s Fair hosts established a precedent for their time, providing some of the most memorable structures of the last few centuries. One city has yet to host a World’s Fair, but represents a future city on the cusp of a new world order, with a potential for unrivaled innovation.

For Montreal, it’s a reference to Habitat 67, designed by Moshe Safdie for the 1967 World Expo.

City plate Collection 1 features Los Angeles, Shanghai, Cairo, and Berlin, each chosen for their reputations as gateways, and for the way each is dealing with the effects of agglomeration as its population begins to reach critical mass.

Collection 2 features the theme is Culture and Capital(ism) and the chosen cities are New Orleans and Washington, D.C., both rich in history and culture, and the booming megalopolises of Las Vegas and Dubai.

Collection 3 features Brasilia, St. Petersburg, Melbourne and New York. Three of the new cities were at one time the seat of government. All remain centers of economic power, cultural leaders, and symbols of their country’s national identity.

Collection 4 features London, Rome, Mexico and Tokyo, all having been empires throughout time with global impact on settlement patterns, national borders, cultural identity, and city form.

Plates are 12″ diameter porcelain, individually boxed. I think that these make fabulous gifts for someone who misses their hometown, for a grand traveler, and for the architectural buff, bien sur. Another use? I think that these are also great visualizing tools to manifest your much desired next travel destination. That would be Mumbai.

BTW, you can buy these fabulous plates individually or as sets at www.NotNeutral.com or Design Public.