laba

UEU
C A R T O
G R A P H Y

FS 16
EPFL_ENAC_LABA
Laboratoire Bâle
BÁRBARA MAÇÃES COSTA
… In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map
of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire,
the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer
satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose
size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The
following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as
their Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless, and not without
some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and
Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that
Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic
of the Disciplines of Geography.
­—Jorge Luis Borges, On Exactitude in Science

PIRI REIS, MAP OF RHODES, C.1525

introduction 1
Landscape Cartography 3
The Map is Fiction / The Map is Real 5
Cartography is Drawing 7

method 9
Site, Frame, Selection, System, Reference, Language 10–5

assignments 17
Drawings 18
Tracing 24
Map 28
Experimental Map 36

info 45
 introduction
Landscape Cartography

The Map is Fiction / The Map is Real

Cartography is Drawing

1
 landscape cartography

One need only look at the layers of the city that archaeologists show us: they appear as a primordial
and eternal fabric of life, an immutable pattern. . . . Destruction and demolition, expropriation and
rapid changes in use and and as a result of speculation and obsolescence, are the most recognizable
signs of urban dynamics.
­—Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City, 1975

In his seminal 1983 essay Le Territoire Comme Palimpseste, André Corboz compares the
territory to a layered parchment with inscriptions and erasures attributed to both intentional
and accidental, natural and human, factors. Tracing a narrative out of the ways in which we have
represented the territory, he identifies a historical opposition between the map – the God’s eye
view, ubiquitous, abstract and descriptive – and the landscape – the human perspective that
projects an état d’âme onto a scenery. The map renders the territory as an object, while the
landscape acknowledges it subjectively. The former has the pretense of exactitude, while the
latter is relative to each viewer’s conscience. Corbóz proposes a challenge to this opposition by
stating that with the advent of satellite imagery and high speed transport, multilocation appears
to have become a human condition and the subject position has become more complex. The
network configurations of contemporary territories have introduced an overlaying of different
speeds and spatio-temporal perceptions. These layers of movement have overlapped with layers
of archaeology and geology, traces of past territorial inscriptions of both deliberate and fortuitous,
human and natural, causes. In reaction to this, he proposes the “palimpsest” as a metaphor
for reading the territory in its depth: as a miscegenation of environments that are overlapped
in strata. The palimpsest challenges the notion of the territory as surface and its affiliated
emphasis on perimeter and propensity for tabula-rasa appropriations. Instead, the territory as
palimpsest requires a close reading of its traces and fragments, aimed at interventions that work
in a spirit of recycling.
This course aims to teach what could be described as Landscape Cartography — a combination
of the map and the landscape, between a technical drawing and subjective painting, in a way that
is always open, incomplete, contextual and project-driven. Its goal is to provide the students with
territorial literacy by giving them a language with which to read and write about the territory,
following a method based on the layering of territorial systems evoked by Corbóz’ palimpsest.

2 PIETRO DEL MASSAIO, MAP OF ROME ACCORDING TO PTOLEMY’S COSMOGRAPHY, 1469 3

 the map is fiction / the map is real

Where, if not from the Impressionists, do we get those wonderful brown fogs that come creeping
down our streets, blurring the gas-lamps and changing the houses into monstrous shadows? To
whom, if not to them and their master [Tuner], do we owe the lovely silver mists that brood over our
river, and turn to faint forms of fading grace curved bridge and swaying barge? The extraordinary
change that has taken place in the climate of London during the last ten years is entirely due to a
particular school of Art.
—Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying, 1909

For a landscape to be, it is necessary that a fragment of reality be gathered under an idea,
a coalescing form, an aesthetic concept. This unifying process is what Alan Roger called
“artealization”. Quoting Oscar Wilde in his 1997 essay Court Traité Du Paysage, Roger argues
that it is through art that the pays (the land as neutral and inert substance) is elevated to paysage
(the landscape as cultural object). Artealization is the process of transforming the world into
an artefact (a landscape) and cartography is precisely this act of artificializing the land, of
humanizing the territory through the projection of fictions and affective narratives onto reality.
Landscape is thus fabricated as a result of cultural appropriation, and the characteristics of
that which a map represents are always relative to the subjectivity of a human observer. The
territory is not strictly human, but landscapes and maps are always anthropocentric narratives.
But despite this apparent empiricism, cartographic drawing reveals hidden structures, spatial
scales and points of view that are not immediate to human experience. In ascribing an image
(representation) to the territory, maps convey a perceptive feeling to realities unavailable to
the human senses. Cartography is never neutral or passive, and its reading the world always
blurs with an inevitable degree of fabrication (the most meticulous mimesis will never vouch for
absolute truth) but at the same time, cartography has the ability to foreground the unconscious
layers of the territory and reveal an archaeology of hidden (perhaps even non-human) truths.

4 HEINRICH BÜNTING, CLOVER LEAF MAP, 1581 5

 cartography is drawing

Cartography is an artistic medium for reading, representing and constructing the real. As
such, cartography translates the territory, which in its totality is chaotic and complex, into
“domesticated” fragments, selected and composed under the aegis of an aesthetic unity.

What kind of law . . . determines this selection and composition? Whatever it is that we can take in
through just one glance or from within our momentary field of vision is not landscape but, at most,
the raw material towards it. In the same way a row of books placed next to each other does not by
itself add up to ‘a library’ – until and unless, and without a single book being added or removed, a
certain unifying concept comes to encompass and give a form to them. . . . The route towards gaining
an approximate idea at least, seems to me to lead through landscape as an art-form … An artist
delineates one part within the chaotic stream and infiniteness of the immediately given world, and
conceives of and forms it as a unitary phenomenon. This now derives its meaning from within itself,
having severed all threads connecting it to the world around it and having retied them into its own
centre.
—Georg Simmel, The Philosophy of Landscape, 1913

In its totality, reality is chaotic and complex. In order to guide subjects in this inconceivable
space, maps encode the peculiarities of the physical world into abstract symbols, made up of
particular marks (dots, lines, blots, voids, colour) that help suggest spatial correlations, such
as direction, distance, movement and structure. Map are graphical codes and cartography is a
language, that is, a system of communication made up of meanings (contents) and signs (forms).

… information is translated through the complex semiotic systems of cartographic representation,

which uniquely combine geometry (in projection, measure, scale, gridding and plotting) and graphic
images (mimetic and conventional signs, colour coding and calligraphy) with numerical and alphabetic
inscriptions and texts.
—Denis Cosgrove, Mappings, 1999

Drawing is complementary to thought: it substantiates vague intuitions into transmissible

shapes, it sharpens visual perception, and it converts information into knowledge in a intuitive,
pre-rational way. Drawing is a machine of vision, measurement and assimilation.

6 DAVID HOCKNEYI, MULHOLLAND DRIVE, 1986 7

method
Site

Frame

Selection

System

Reference

Language

9
1) identify a site and territorial condition 2) frame it as an aerial view at an adequate scale

SITE: COACHELLA VALLEY, CA, USA

TERRITORIAL CONDITION: ABSTRACT LANDSCAPE IN ASYMMETRICAL VALLEY

10 11
3) select layers and draw each with distinct graphic identities

4) combine those layers into a system

ASYMMETRICAL TOPOGRAPHY

HYDROGRAPHY AND IRRIGATION

VALLEY INFRASTRUCTURE

12 13
 5) chose a reference map ... 6) redraw map in a borrowed and appropriated language

REFERENCE: JAZZBERRY BLUE, CITY MAPS SERIES

14 GILDA GYSIN, MAPS OF COACHELLA VALLEY, UE U 2015 15

assignments
Drawings

Tracing

Map

Experimental Map

17
1) drawings

The course will start with hand sketching classes whose goal is to introduce the students to
basic some drawing’s main basic challenges: hierarchy of weights, relational composition
between elements, the presence and shape of voids, the problem of stereotypes, the unconscious
tendency for symmetry, fear of complexity, etc. The drawing assignments will be short and the
goal is to produce quick and abstract sketches — one should capture the “spirit” of the forms
and allude to them by synthesizing their character. The first drawing session will be made from
photographs projected on the wall in the classroom, and the second one will focus on real-life
objects in an outdoor location to be announced.
The selection of projected photographs will tend greatly towards abstraction, with reduced
perspective and repetitive patterns. Students will be asked to identify systems that might work as
“graphical families” because they share visual similarities and thus can relate to each other as
an independent layer. Once identified, each layer should be attributed a distinct and appropriate
code (lines, dots, blots, voids, colour) and it should be drawn in a corresponding technique, for
example: paintbrush for large strokes that are meandering and continuous; pen for thin lines that
are dense and chaotic; sponge and water for complex blots, etc. In the end, elements belonging
to the same layer are in dialogue with each other, while different layers relate by juxtaposition.
This juxtaposition of layers will result in a drawing of a system of graphical structures.
Each student will receive a sketch book to be used outside class hours as a personal visual
journal. It will need to be handed in for evaluation at the end of the semester. The goal of this
journal is to promote and sustain the experimental and inquiring attitude instilled in the first
exercises above mentioned. The student should train him/herself to see layers and systems
everywhere, be it in photographs or in reality itself, and carry out an aesthetic investigation that
points towards a personal graphical language. The journal is meant to be a space of freedom,
risk and intimacy, but also of reflexive thought and criticism.

18 BÁRBARA MAÇÃES COSTA, ABSTRACT LANDSCAPES, 2012 19

20 KELISSA CARTIER, VISUAL JOURNAL, UE U 2015 21
22 KARINA BORODAI, VISUAL JOURNAL, UE U 2015 23
2) tracing

Producing a map demands imagination, empathy and a sense of spaciousness, because it

requires the ability to perceive a place vicariously. As such, the author must work from position of
openness and flexibility, embracing a certain degree of play and risk. One starts from an intuition
which is then rationalized, which then instigates new questions, hence restarting the process of
fluctuation between doubt and conviction, intuition and intention.
Producing a map demands choice and hierarchy. The information which is contained in a map
must be organized in a coherent way (as in a text which narrates a story) and for that one chose
an order of relevance and resist the temptation for a certain kind of detail fetishism. Maps are
reductive — through erasure, they reveal a part of an immeasurable whole.
This exercise is an intermediate step that bridges between the hand drawings and the map. As
before, students will be shown a pool of abstract photos that depict landscape patterns. Each
student will pick one and draw it, this time through precise digital tracing. This is still a largely
conceptual exercise, placed somewhere between an abstract composition and a meaningful
map, but the goals established in the previous exercise remain valid: to identify layers, ascribe
them distinct graphic identities, and overlap them into a palimpsestuous system.

24 PHOTO: ESA, SATELLITE IMAGE OF NAMIB DESET PHOTO: DAVID MAISEL, THE FALL SERIES 25

LINDA V., UE U 2015 KELISSA C., UE U 2015

26 PHOTO: DANIEL BERGMANN, ICELAND SERIES PHOTO: DAVID MAISEL, THE MINING PROJECT SERIES PHOTO: MARBLE PLATE PHOTO: FAZAL SHEIKH, ERASURE SERIES 27

ERIK H., UE U 2015 MATILDA B., UE U 2015 RAQUEL S., UE U 2015 JULIE L., UE U 2015
3) map

This will be the first cartographic exercise, stricto sensu, where the previous conceptual strategies
will finally be put into practice. An aerial photo will be main tool from which the map will be
produced, drawn digitally (AI, PS, Acad) but possibly also incorporating hand-made techniques.
The choice of site depicted in the aerial photo is up to the student but it should reflect a conscious
framing of a specific territorial condition. The choice of scale of this framing will be crucial. The
map will be assessed as much for its graphical quality as for the understanding it might reveal
of the circumstance that it illustrates (qualities which are, in fact, absolutely entangled: there are
no beautiful maps without a clear content communication).
The aerial photo might serve as main tracing basis but it will not answer all issues and serve
all purposes. Therefore, the drawing of the map will demand the gathering of complimentary
information about the chosen site, such as texts, photographs, other maps, etc. However, this
research will not be part of the final delivery, which will consist solely of the map and the aerial
photo, both juxtaposed with the same framing.
During the execution of this map, all issues raised in the previous exercises still hold valid, and
the overlapping of this specific assignment with the visual journal will be fundamental in the
search for a coherent language. Students may chose to add zooms to their maps, or include
in their presentation a break-down of the layers that make up their system-map. This exercise
should reflect the course method explained in points 1—4 of the previous chapter of this booklet:
site, frame, selection, system.

28 CARLA JABOYEDOFF, MAP OF KERALA BACKWATERS, INDIA, UE U 2015 29

30 LINDA VALLANDER, MAP OF KEY WEST, USA, UE U 2015 JULIE LERFALD, MAP OF THE WALLENSEE, CH, UE U 2015 31
32 PER HULTCRANTZ, MAP OF TUCSON, USA, UE U 2015 33
34 BÁRBARA MAÇÃES COSTA, MAP OF ISRAEL, LABA 2016 35
4) experimental map

This will be the final assignment, where one hopes that the students demonstrate a synthesis
of the course’s overall content, while articulating acquired knowledge with the aesthetic
interpretation of an existing reference map chosen by the student. The process of construction of
this map will now depend on the reference chosen, but the site and frame will remain the same.
The graphical language of the experimental map will be influenced, in a critical but evident way,
by the aesthetic concept of the reference map. This exercise should reflect the course method
explained in points 5—6 of the previous chapter of this booklet: reference, language.
While the previous exercise had the main didactic function of passing on territorial knowledge —
the capacity to read and frame the addressed urban morphologies and structures — the present
assignment is more demanding in terms of the map’s graphic ambition. While the previous
exercise (map) had the goal of providing the student with a somewhat pre-established language,
this exercise (experimental map) gives students the opportunity to work closer towards inventing
a language of their own. The student will be able to adjust the difficulty of this assignment to his
own capacity and motivation by choosing an adequate reference, since the most imperative goal
of the exercise is to ensure a visual and conceptual affinity between reference and final product.
Nevertheless, an experimental attitude and disposition for risk will be rewarded. In addition, it is
also important that the chosen reference be appropriate for the territorial condition that is being
depicted and the narrative that comes with it.
In the final assessment, this final project will be confronted with the overall growth of the student
(especially evident in the visual journal) which will be appreciated and commented on with
special interest whether it be linear or irregular. In the final review, all semester work must be
presented: drawings (visual journal), tracing, map, and experimental map.

36 REFERENCE: DAVID HOCKNEY, SIX FAIRY TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM, 1970 / MATISSE, BLUE NUDE II, 1952 37

ERICK HEDBORG, EXPERIMENTAL MAP OF GOTHENBURG, UE U 2015

38 REFERENCE: FLORIAN BEIGEL, SAEMANGEUM, SOUTH KOREA, 2008 REFERENCE: FERDINAND HODLER, LAKE THUN, SYMMETRIC REFLECTION, 1905 39

LINDA VALLANDER, EXPERIMENTAL MAP OF KEY WEST, USA, UE U 2015 JULIE LERFALD, EXPERIMENTAL MAP OF THE WALENSEE, CH, UE U 2015
40 REFERENCE: DAVID HOCKNEY, MULHOLLAND DRIVE, 1986 & MULHOLLAND DRIVE: THE ROAD TO THE STUDIO, 1980 REFERENCE: VARIOUS BY CY TWOMBLY 41

KELISSA CARTIER, EXPERIMENTAL MAP OF THE TIGRIS DELTA, UE U 2015 TYLER SMITH, EXPERIMENTAL MAP HOUSTON, USA, UE U 2015
 Pedreira de S. Luís
~
alt.151

Forte Velho
~
alt.96

Colina
~
alt.41

Fontaínhas
~
alt.31

Forte de Albarquel
~ ~ Mapa dos Lugares da Intimidade ~ N
alt.9

O E
0 250m  500m

B.M
S

42 REFERENCE: BRAUN & HOGENBERG, OLISSIPPO QUAE NUNC LISBOA, 1617 REFERENCE: O.M.A., PARC LA VILETTE, PARIS, 1982 43

BÁRBARA MAÇÃES COSTA (FOR SAMI), MAPA DA INTIMIDADE, SETÚBAL, 2014 BÁRBARA MAÇÃES COSTA, SCHOOL DAY POSTER, 2013
info

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 laba-ueu-cartography . ch

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distinguished cartographers: text references:
BEATUS OF LIÉBANA (c.701–798, Principality of Asturias) CORBOZ, André, 2001. Le Territoire Comme Palimpseste et Autres Essais. Introduction by MAROT,
Sébastien. Besançon: Les Éditions de l’Imprimeur.
PIRI REIS (c.1470–1553, Otoman Empire) COSGROVE, Denis, ed., 1999. Mappings (Critical Views). London: Reaktion.
ROGER, Alain, 1997. Court Traité Du Paysage. Paris: Gallimard.
GABRIEL DE VALLSECA (c.1408–1467, Principality of Catalonia) ROSSI, Aldo, 1984. The Architecture of the City. Introduction by Peter Eisenmann. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
PEDRO REINEL (c.1462–c.1542, Portugal) SIMMEL, Georg, 2007. The Philosophy of Landscape. Theory, Culture & Society [e-journal] 24(7–8),
p.20–29. Available at: <tcs.sagepub.com> at WWZ Bibliothek website <http://www.ub.unibas.ch/
FRA MAURO (?–1468, Republic of Venice) ub-hauptbibliothek> [Accessed 24 April 2015].
WILDE, Oscar, 1909. The Decay of Lying. New York: The Nottingham Society. [e-book] Available
SEBASTIAN MÜNSTER (1488–1552, Germany) at: The Victorian Web <http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/wilde/decay.html> [Accessed 16
February 2013].
OLAUS MAGNUS (1490–1557, Scandinavia)

GERARDUS MERCATOR (1512–1594, Flanders)

further reading:
ABRAHAM ORTELIUS (1527 –1598, Flanders)
CORNER, James, 2014. The Landscape Imagination: the collected essays of James Corner 1990—
FERNÃO VAZ DOURADO (c.1520–c.1580, Goa, Portuguese India) 2010. New Jersey: Princeton Architectural Press.
DESVIGNE, Michel, 2008. Natures Intermediaires: Les Paysages de Michel Desvigne. Basel, Boston,
ATHANASIUS KIRCHER (1602–1680, Germany) Berlin: Birkhäuser.
SECCHI, Bernardo and VIGANÒ, Paola, 2011. La ville poreuse : Un projet pour le Grand Paris et la
GIAMBATTISTA NOLLI (1701–1756, Italy) métropole de l’après-Kyoto. Genève: MetisPresses.
JACKSON, John B., 1980. The Necessity of Ruins. Amherst: University of Massachussetts Press.
JOSEPH DE FERRARIS (1726–1814, Austria) MAROT, Sébastien, 2010. L’art De La Mémoire, Le Territoire et L’Architecture. Paris: Éditions de la
Villette.
TOMÁS LOPEZ (1730–1802, Madrid) VIGANÒ, Paola, 2012. Les territoires de l’urbanisme, le projet comme producteur de connaissance.
Genève: MetisPresses.
EDUARD IMHOF (1895–1986, Switzerland) SMETS, Bas, 2014. Paysages: 3 Expositions. Bureau Bas Smets. Antwerp: DeSingel & VAi.

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 laba
laba - Laboratoire Bâle
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Tel: +41 (0) 61 225 10 20
Email: barbara.costa@epfl.ch
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www.laba-ueu-cartography.ch

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