Watch a city grow before your eyes (in record time). Popville is a pop-up book that explores urban development through the clever paper engineering of Anouck Boisrobert and Louis Rigaud. Both graduates of France’s prestigious design school, this first book of theirs was awarded the 2011 Bank Street Best Children’s Book for the Year. But let’s not be ageist, adults can read it too (or rather, look at it, after all there are no words).

A cutaway in the book’s center allows a series of stylised scenes to build on top of each other with the turn of every page, the book beginning with a humble farmhouse and ending with a modern day metropolis. While some landscape features are stagnant through Popville’s entirety, what’s most exciting is the introduction of new developments that build up to a climatic finale that depicts the passage of time in just a few minutes.

You can order your copy from Upon A Fold.

Popville city landscape.

Popville farm landscape.

Images are copyright by Upon A Fold.