There are the cities that we visit and then there are the ones that we think we have visited, that we feel as though we have always known. Irene Kung accompanies us in these meanderings of the mind, amid monuments that seem to rise up out of nowhere, dazzling us with their own lights, stylised with pure lines worthy of our imagination. These highly refined images by Irene Kung are the result of a long period of research and have earned her international acclaim. It is not a question of reproducing reality: the monuments that she chooses to photograph come from various cities and eras, we know them all, yet all of them also seem to belong to a dream world.

In this book, the Flatiron building in New York, the Millennium Bridge in London, the Duomo in Milan or the Colosseum become apparitions from a world of fables. Together, they trace the outlines of an ideal city – one of dreams as opposed to experience – that we traverse, guided by Irene Kung, within a suspended world.