Pericoli, who was born in Milan, Italy, said his interest in art stemmed from his father, a cartoonist.
“When I was very little, the art of drawing was basically another way of communicating within the family,” he said.
Pericoli later attended the Milan Polytechnic School of Architecture. In 1995, he moved to New York City to see for himself what living there was like and to discover what it feels like to work as an architect “without pressure, constraint from the past.”
His idea to create an homage to the spirit of the city through drawings began with his commute to and from his home on the Upper West Side to work at an architectural firm. First, he started thinking about drawing a portion of Riverside Drive. Then, when he was on the Circle Line, he decided that he wanted to draw the entire profile of Manhattan, beginning with the West Side. He worked on it nights and weekends.
“I began it as an experiment to make a drawing for me and maybe for children,” he said. “I thought, like it was going to become a children’s book. But now I had this 30-plus-foot drawing of the skyline of New York. At the same time I realized it was never done before.”
The resulting 37-foot drawing attracted the attention of architecture critic Paul Goldberger; later, Pericoli landed a book deal based on his drawing, which eventually led to “Manhattan Unfurled.” Fans of the Beastie Boys will recognize Pericoli’s drawing from “Manhattan Unfurled” on the group’s 2004 album “To The 5 Boroughs.”
Most recently, Pericoli has broadened his artistic focus — to the entire world, in fact — with “Skyline of the World,” which depicts structures and landmarks from 70 cities across the globe. What began as a drawing has become a 397-foot long, 30- to 52-foot high mural that was installed in the new American Airlines terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport this past spring. “I am very happy and satisfied that the original drawings came out well,” Pericoli said.
“I’ve never done anything this size before. It occupies an immense space.”
These days, Pericoli divides his time between teaching architecture at Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s School, working on his own projects, and raising his young daughter with his wife in their Jackson Heights home, where they have lived since 2004. He recently finished working on his third children’s book, “Tommaso and the Missing Line,” about a little boy searching for a line that disappears from his drawing.
His other book project in the works is a “collection of views of New York seen through the very windows of people whose works we know.”
Given the amount of time and detailed care he applies to his artwork, it’s apparent that this native Italian has adapted to his current hometown quite well. “The amazing thing about New York is that the soil of the city is incredibly fertile,” he said. “And that’s the beauty of this place.”
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