Epic Ideas // Illustrator James Gulliver Hancock Hopes To Draw Every Building In New York

All the Buildings in New York - Mott St, by James Gulliver Hancock.

Brooklyn-based Australian illustrator James Gulliver Hancock loves drawing. He also loves buildings. It makes sense then, that he's taken on an epic project bringing those two passions together. The project's name, All the Buildings in New York, says it all. His goal is to draw all of the Big Apple's buildings. While that ambition might be as far-fetched as Sufjan Steven's Fifty States Project, Hancock has done quite a few, and you can browse them by location via this nifty Google map. Hit the jump below to watch a video interview about the project.

Here's Hancock's explanation of how All the Buildings in New York got started, from an interview with CasaSugar:

I'd been doing this series of drawings where I capture a cliché of each city I'd visit; you can see the other ones on my website. So when I moved to New York, it was natural to do one here. However, moving to this great city, I was a little overwhelmed, so this became a special one.

It was interesting, because when I moved here it was like moving to a familiar place. Being originally from Australia, I'd seen so many pop culture images of New York that I almost didn't believe it was real. When I arrived, it had this kind of movie set-like mystique, so the blog was a conscious decision to try and tackle that, to make connections to my new home through drawing. And it's worked, through sitting down and taking in different places through the city, I've made new connections, planted markers of familiarity for myself within its structure and its reality, almost to the point that the buildings become little friends everywhere.

That sense of fascination and connection with his surroundings is what we love about Hancock's work. His project doesn't come across as a gimmick or contrivance, but a genuine glimpse of what it's like to discover the city. That's probably a familiar feeling for anyone who's moved to the New York, as is another moment that Hancock describes in that CasaSugar interview:

Sometimes in Summer, crossing one of the bridges, I've found myself with an uninterrupted view of the city, and I get heart palpitations, worrying that I may not be able to draw it all. I am a really focused person and it almost stresses me out the volume of buildings! But I hope to be here for a while, so we'll see!

Want to make sure Hancock gets to your building before he's old and gray? No problem: Commission the NYC building of your choice via his website.

And now for that video interview with Hancock, by Marisa Guzman-Aloia:

-- John Ruscher