51.4816°N / 3.1791°W · United Kingdom
Two things on this map were made rather than found: the basins to the south, all right angles where the coast is all curves, and the wooded strip to the north. Between the two, the city.
You choose the framing, the palette and the words of the caption. The work is drawn from real data, then printed to order in the workshop closest to you.
The river comes down from the hills to the north and crosses the whole sheet. Along its banks above the centre runs the park, and it reads as a clear band with no streets in it, wrapped around ground where a castle stands that the map cannot draw. Southward the river reaches a bay that two headlands had almost closed, and the water there is edged by the old dock basins, cut square into the land. Westward a second river borders the city.
Now the thing this print cannot do, and it is the very thing the city is proudest of. A barrage closed the bay, turning it into a body of fresh water: the barrage does draw, as a thin line over the water, but the base map gives water a single level everywhere. The bay and the open sea are therefore exactly the same grey, and nothing shows that one was shut off from the other. To the east, the tidal flats are never drawn either, so the sea will look full there whatever the tide.
Plenty of water, and in two kinds again: the soft body of the bay to the south, and the hard rectangles of the basins. But be aware of what one tone will do here. Because the map gives water a single level, a strong water colour will make the bay and the open sea into one continuous shape, which is truthful but hides the whole story of the barrage. A lighter water lets the basins stand out as separate rectangles, and the basins are what carry the history.
Portrait, river down the sheet and bay at the foot. The setting favours the basins and the park over the barrage, and deliberately: the barrage does not separate anything visually, so putting it at the centre would spend the frame on a line that says nothing. Come closer and the basins gain, but the park and the second river leave the sheet.
The title, one line under it, the coordinates. The name of a dock, a tonnage, a year: that line tells what the two greys of the water refuse to say.
The castle stands on the site of a Roman fort built at the ford of the river, and four successive forts occupied the same ground. The city's Welsh name reads as the fort on that river. Everything you see gathered on this sheet began at one crossing point, and the park that now wraps the castle is the only trace the drawing can carry.
The second Marquess of Bute opened the West Bute Dock, and within a few decades Cardiff had become the leading coal port in the world, with a dockside quarter counting some fifty nationalities. The square basins on your print are that decision, dug rather than built, and they are still the most man-made shape on the map.
Coal traffic peaked in 1913 at more than ten million tonnes shipped in a single year, and then the docks declined for most of a century. The basins outlived the trade that dug them, which is why they are still water on a map where the coal is long gone.
Yes. The search covers the whole world, from a capital to a hamlet. For the Sky collection, any date works, past or future: the sky is calculated.
From 21 × 29.7 cm to 84.1 × 118.9 cm, that is A4 to A0, portrait or landscape depending on the material. Every size is shown with its price in the editor.
Four, from the barest to the most dressed.
Allow 1 to 4 working days for making, up to 7 for hand-assembled frames and canvases, then 1 to 6 working days in transit with standard delivery.
Digital editions are available immediately: the file of your piece is emailed to you as soon as you order.
The walk through the park along the river, the road down to the water, the basin you crossed to get to the other side. The bay is the same for everyone. What you had at the end of it is not.
Compose my Cardiff print
