You've never seen Europe like this. For the full effect, you want to watch this one in full screen, HD, rocking some nice headphones if you can swing it. Oh, and turn off the lights.
This is "Nightvision," a fantastic supercut of some of the most iconic architectural landmarks in all of Europe, shot entirely at night. The work of filmmaker Luke Shepard, it is the stunning culmination of three months' work, and was made possible almost entirely through support from Kickstarter backers.
Writes Shepard:
Nightvision is a celebration of the brilliance and diversity of architecture found across Europe. Over the course of three months I journeyed with a friend through 36 cities in 21 countries with the ambition of capturing some of the greatest European structures in a new and unique way. Comprised of thousands of carefully taken photographs, strung together and stabilized in post-production, Nightvision aims to inspire appreciation for these man-made landmarks.
Shepard used a 90-day Europass to travel throughout Europe, shooting more than 20,000 photos in the process. He used those shots to create 47 timelapse sequences, a little over half of which made it into the supercut up top. He lists the buildings featured, in order of appearance, on his website:
NAME - ARCHITECT - LOCATION
Brandenburg Gate - Carl Gotthard Langhans - Berlin, Germany
Arc de Triomphe - Jean Chalgrin - Paris, France
Philharmonie Luxembourg - Christian de Portzamparc - Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
Atomium - André Waterkeyn - Brussels, Belgium
Palace of Westminster - Charles Berry - London, England
Copenhagen Opera House - Henning Larsen - Copenhagen, Denmark
Trevi Fountain - Nicola Salvi - Rome, Italy
Belém Tower - Francisco de Arruda - Lisbon, Portugal
L'Hemisferic - Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela - Valencia, Spain
Berliner Dom - Julius Raschdorff - Berlin, Germany
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao - Frank Gehry - Bilbao, Spain
Cologne Cathedral - Willy Weyres - Cologne, Germany
Hungarian Parliament Building - Imre Steindl - Budapest, Hungary
Oslo Opera House - Tarald Lundevall - Oslo, Norway
The Shard - Renzo Piano - London, England
Fernsehturm Berlin - Hermann Henselmann and Jörg Streitparth - Berlin, Germany
Bode-Museum - Ernst von Ihne - Berlin, Germany
Sultan Ahmed Mosque - Sedefkar Mehmed Agha - Istanbul, Turkey
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral - Alexander Pomerantsev - Sofia, Bulgaria
Tower Bridge - Horace Jones and George D Stephenson - London, England
Prague Astronomical Clock - Mikuláš of Kadaň and Jan Šindel - Prague, Czech Republic
Fraumünster - Staffelbach Meier and Marc Chagall - Zurich, Switzerland
Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía - Santiago Calatrava - Valencia, Spain
Rathaus Vienna - Friedrich von Schmidt - Vienna, Austria
National Theatre - Maria Siklós - Budapest, Hungary
Sagrada Família - Antoni Gaudí - Barcelona, Spain
Roman Colosseum - Vespasian and Titus - Rome, Italy
Under Krystallen - Schmidt Hammer Lassen - Copenhagen, Denmark
Read more about Shepard's process – including equipment and software info, and a map denoting where his sequences were shot – on his website. (The song, by the way, is "Outro" by M83. It's just really killer timelapse music, if history is any indication.)