A Beautiful Mind

This is a drawing of Urville, Europe's largest city. It was founded by the Phoenicians in the 11th Century and after becoming part of France, slowly became the cultural and economic center of Europe. Since its founding Urville has grown into a megalopolis with millions of inhabitants.

Gilles Trehin, the autistic savant who has been building Urville in his brain since the 1980's, has also created a cast of artists, architects, and politicians who have all left their mark on the cityscape through the Middle Ages, the Industrial Revolution, the World Wars and the Cold War.

 The massive city has been drawn in painstaking detail by Trehin, who works ten hours a day on his masterpiece. The entirety of Urville has not yet been drawn, but the five areas of the city that have been rendered in their entirety are all drawn from hundreds of different points of view, but remain consistent even in the smallest detail. Over 250 of these gorgeous drawings have been included in a book written by Trehin that describes the geography, architecture, and history of Urville. There are some great samples over at Brain Pickings if you want to check some out right away. Do- they're cool

There is an archetypal autistic mind- it is seen as a mechanical, robotic calculator in a human skull. To most of us, those savant abilities look strangely limited. An ability to instantly calculate dates or memorize huge amounts of data are abilities that you often see in autistic savants, but they're not terribly useful in and of themselves. The autistic savant's mind is seen as Siri- amazing but useless without an emotionally intelligent, imaginative human to guide it and rescue it from its confounding, concrete literality.

Urville has a mix of architectural styles

Like most stereotypes, there is of course an element of truth to this idea. Many autistic people have minds that operate that way. Most autistic people aren't like this at all, though. Only about ten percent of autistic people even have savant abilities.

Urville has evolved over time

Trehin, however, has an amazing mind, and it is a mind only an autistic person could ever have. Urville is an example of what the autistic mind can do. Only an autistic brain can conjure up the intricate minutae of Urville and keep track of it. What makes Urville stand out for me though, is this element of conjuration. The reverence for detail you see in Trehin's drawings is coupled with a vibrant, colorful viewpoint and a fertile imagination. Only a genius, a true artist could create something as wholly original as Urville.

Trehin proves that even the greatest stereotype of the autistic person- the savant who amazes us all with cognitive parlor tricks- is false. He is a different type of savant altogether. He does what those savants do. He has perfect pitch, he can calculate prime numbers without thinking. At the same time, there is a whimsical nature to his mathematical mind. The cold, logical detachment that has always been regarded as sine qua non of the autistic savant is not really there. Sure, Trehin is obsessed with Urville in a way- but when you see him talk about it, he doesn't have the sort of anxious preoccupation of a Rain Man. It's more like a boyish enthusiasm.



There is a saying that gets used a lot in autism advocacy circles that says "If you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism." I've heard that cliche about other things as well, but that doesn't make it untrue. Gilles Trehin is one in a million, and autism plays an undeniable role in what makes him so unique. It does not make him who he is, however. He is just one person, but he is an amazing autistic person- just like all then others- just like my son.