The city is a repository of objects, architectures, and experiences—a kind of museum turned inside out. Yet, urban dwellers typically have only limited access to the stories and meanings behind buildings and streets. Museum of the Phantom City explores how ubiquitous personal telecommunications devices can be used to make these hidden stories visible. The museum takes the form of an iphone app that guides users on new itineraries through the city’s spaces.

Museum of the Phantom City allows the person on the street to access, and contribute to, an online database of hidden stories embedded in the city. While typical urban navigation apps like Google Maps and Yelp seek to clarify and make the city more legible, Museum of the Phantom City is interested in deepening and intensifying urban experience, in making the more strange rather than less.