Dark Cities

Dark Cities is a trilogy of photobooks by Shyue Woon that reimagines fringe spaces in Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul. In his daily practice as an architect, Woon turns aspirations into constructible reality. In Dark Cities, he reverses this process—using images as clues, Woon deconstructs reality and spaces into fiction and figments of imagination, creating alternative narratives and realities.

Presented like a detective case file, the packaging refers to the investigatory lens that Woon puts the spaces through. The three locations and a short blurb are quietly indexed, alongside a title that is partially readable, giving an impression of cities that are clean, orderly and sanitised. The inner packaging contrasts this with suggestions of a grim dystopia, setting the tone for the three books that investigate the underbelly of these cities.