Manhole Covers of the World by Björn Altmann / ISBN 9783721210217 / an attractive 224-page hardback published in 2023 by niggli Verlag (Switzerland), text in English (and part of the jacket unfolds into a poster). A nice companion to .

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Amazing discoveries under your feet: You’ll find them all across the world, from Albania, Argentina and Australia to the United States, the Vatican and Vietnam. And yet maybe you’ve never even noticed them, hiding in plain sight beneath your feet. Manhole covers have been part of our world for thousands of years – intensely practical, functional objects, but at the same time featuring an infinite variety of designs, from austere and minimalist to playful and illustrative. Using a uniform black-and-white graphic style to precisely recreate manhole covers from 80 countries, this volume provides an insight into the fascinating design language of these unique objects – and what they reveal about the societies that produce them.