Typical of the cross-disciplinary interplay at Rios Clementi Hale Studios, the City Plates project was started by architect Jennifer Cosgrove, Assoc. AIA, who was working on the Los Angeles Civic Park landscape project. The reductive graphics of her diagram and the recognizable pattern of streets and landmarks translated well to the medium of ceramic plates.

City Plates, released in sets of four, look at cities as a graphic language of line, color, and pattern as a means to investigate the impact of cultural, economic, historical, and political forces on city form. Each of five sets has a particular conceptual framework that relates the four cities within the set to each other. Themes are: Gateways???????(R)?EUR??,,????'?EUR??,,?EUR Agglomeration, Culture???????(R)?EUR??,,????'?EUR??,,?EUR Capital(ism),Capital Migration, Empire Building ( Rebuilding) and The Grandiose City, and Future Cities (Past???????(R)?EUR??,,????'?EUR??,,?EUR Present). Each plate celebrates the beauty implicit in a city?EUR??,,????'?????<