La Nouvelle Angleterre

New England

Cosmic regionalism, cities

New England consists of six states in the northeastern United States of America (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire). It is the main theatre of the Lovecraftian fictions.

This land is that of the first colonists. Its past nourished the tales of Lovecraft: the puritans, the witch hunt of Salem. Real cities became imaginary cities like Innsmouth, Arkham.

Lovecraft had a passion for the great lost cities. An aesthetic trance can sometimes be perceived in his descriptions of beautiful architecture. He is ecstatic in front of the Manhattan buildings observed from the ocean. The architecture of his imaginary cities is fantastic: cyclopean structures, bridges overlooking abysses, reliefs and frescoes reveal the history of long-gone and non-human civilizations to the explorer. 

In the city of R’lyeh, where Cthulhu lives, we no longer know what is vertical or horizontal. Cities, forms, volumes or spaces correspond to a non-Euclidean geometry.