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202 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS RAND MCNALLY 1926 DETAILED AUTO ROAD MAP LOS ANGELES AND VICNITY OF
LINE SYMBOL 203 9.3 34.0522° N, 118.2428° W, Rand McNally, Auto Road Map of Los Angeles and Vicinity, 1926. Scale: 1:24,240 (shown at half size). The 1926 Rand McNally map of Los Angeles, with its single-minded emphasis on roadways and vehicular access, is exemplary of road map cartography produced in the golden age of the automobile. The roads are printed in dark blue ink, with thicker lines representing “paved” and “main travelled” roads and thinner lines depicting “common” roads. Besides the transportation network, the map has minimal detail, with stylized marks and lines showing topographical relief, rivers, and the coastline. 9.4 37.7833° S, 144.9667° E, Melway, Greater Melbourne Street Directory, 1966. Scale: 1:21,120 (shown at half size). This first edition Melway map of Melbourne is one of the finest examples of roadway-map design. Company founders Mery Godfrey and Iven Mackay drove all of Melbourne to create 106 hand-drawn ink maps. The color palette is inspired by the Pop Art movement: vibrant reds, yellows, greens, and blues. The rendering of the roads departs from the “double casing” standard of streets drawn as two parallel lines with the name in the middle. The Melway roads are solid lines, with the names offset, allowing for color coding to describe typology and usage. The Melway maps, now in their 41st edition, show dual carriageways, slip lanes, service roads, speed bumps, roundabouts, and other roadway features relevant to the motorist experience. 9.2 ( pp. 200–1 ) 34.0522° N, 118.2428° W, Aaron Straup Cope/Stamen Design, Pretty Maps, 2010. Scale: zoom levels 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15 shown. Pretty Maps is an experimental map where layers of freely available data are aggregated and rendered as color fields and lines. The white, pink, and blue ghosted shapes represent places where Flickr users have geotagged photos; the blue motorway lines and green path lines are from OpenStreetMap; and the orange shapes denote urban areas as classified by Natural Earth. The sequence pictured describes a progression of zoom levels from the point at which localities appear to the point where interactions among paths are evident.
204 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS 9.5 51.0451° N, 4.2013° E, Bieke Cattoor and Bruno De Meulder, E17: Rhythm Phases of Highway— Landscape Interactions, 2008. Belgian urbanists Cattoor and DeMeulder’s study of the E17 freeway from Kortrijk to Waregem, describes the rhythmic quality of the route, its interplay with the fluvial landscape, and its impact on urban development patterns. Line types and colors are used to describe the E17 freeway, noted in yellow, and the other parallel infrastructural elements and development areas interacting with the road. White are the feeder routes, red are the bridges that cross the freeway, and orange are the transversal roads interrupted by the construction of the freeway. The dark and light blue lines trace how the local streams and creeks have been ruptured, repaired, or altered to accommodate new development. The thinner, dark gray lines trace the canal and railway lines that disrupt the pattern. The territorial impact of road construction is revealed through the sophistication of the representational language and the fine grain of the drawn elements.
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206 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS 9.6 45.4333° N, 12.3167° E, Bernardo Secchi and Paola Viganò with PhD students in urbanism, Università IUAV di Venezia, Water and Asphalt: The Project of Isotropy, X Biennale of Architecture, Venice, 2006. This detail from the Italian urbanists Bernardo Sechhi and Paola Viganò’s Veneto study [FIG. 6.8] looks at the intertwined and related networks of water (red), roads (black) and built fabric (gray). It inverts representational standards and thus invokes a nontraditional reading of the infrastructure. Places of system overlap are marked by a convergence and doubling of lines, producing a graphic hierarchy. The language moves away from the idea of the center and the periphery toward a connected matrix across the entire region. 9.7 41.3855° N, 2.1687° E, F. Puig, Plano General de Barcelona, 1911. The 1911 general plan of Barcelona depicts the projects for the widening of streets and the extension of the city toward the surrounding mountains (indicated loosely with contours). The map is dominated by the regularity of the Barcelona blocks [FIG. 6.6], juxtaposed with the organic figures of the older parts of the city. Using the signature color of the route and contrasting nicely with the ochre blocks, the newly electrified tramway lines indicate the pull of urbanization outward. The solid blocks of the Eixample fade to ghosted lines of planned blocks, distinguishing between the inhabited city and the growing city of the future.
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208 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS 9.8 45.5547° N, 69.2466° W, The Appalachian Trail Conference, Guide to the Appalachian Trail in Maine (Washington, DC: The Appalachian Trail Conference, 1936). Created in the inaugural year of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club—a group that oversaw the 267 miles of trail construction in Maine—this guide was an indispensable tool to direct volunteer efforts. It included relevant access and amenity information, including the automobile roads, tote roads, marked and unmarked trails, active and abandoned camps, fire service towers, and the Appalachian Trail proper. Following the panoramic prioritization method practiced by Benton MacKaye [FIG. 9.9], the mapmakers only illustrated major contour lines and streams, roads, trails, and camps, keeping the maps simple and easy to read, with landmarks clearly recognizable to all levels of map and trail users. . . . THE WHITE CAP REGION PREPARED TO ACCOMPANY EAST BRANCH TO WEST BRANCH OF PLEASANT RIVER GUIDE TO APPALACHIAN TRAIL IN MAINE ISSUED BY BASED ON MAPS PRE PARED BY PRENTISS AND CARLISLE CO., BANGOR, MAINE. FOR SECTION OF APPALACHIAN TRAIL TO THE NORTH-SEE A.T.C "KATAHDIN TO EAST BRANCH OF PLEASANT RIVER MAP". FOR SECTION TO THE SOUTH–SEE A.T.C. "THE BARREN-CHAIRBACK RANGE MAP.
LINE SYMBOL 209 in the landscape—and the results are both brilliant for their regional strategies and reflective of a direct engagement with the territory. Rather than filling his drawings, maps, and sketches with elevation data and distant place names, he isolated the key landmarks, which can be understood on foot as a hiker. These include railways and bridges that link to and interrupt the trail as well as streams, tree lines, plateaus, ridges, valleys, and a select few key contour lines to articulate the shape of the land. 9.9 40.2697° N, 76.8756° W, Benton MacKaye, Appalachian Trail Detail Map Showing Mostly Pennsylvania, undated. Benton MacKaye leveraged his training in geology, forestry, and earth science toward an approach to regional planning that emphasizes the reciprocity between human and environment in large landscape infrastructure projects. His project for the Appalachian Trail merged recreation, conservation, policy, and economics. His working method depended on fieldwork—on immersion
210 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS 9.10 54.5530° N, 3.3680° W, A. Wainwright, Gavel Fells, 1966. Originally published in A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells: The Western Fells, bk. 7 (Kendal, UK: Westmorland Gazette, 1966), Gavel Fells 5–6. Alfred Wainwright, an avid walker, cartographer and Lake District devotee, created a seven-volume definitive guide to the fells surrounding the Lake District in northwest England. Originally published between 1952 and 1966 from Wainwright’s hand-drawn ink manuscripts, the guides include a map for each of the 214 fells, with written details and descriptions of the various ascent and descent routes, summit characteristics, and drawings of each notable view. The drawings pictured, of Gavel Fells, present a hybrid plan-perspective view, with the extents expanding and contracting with viewshed and landmark.
LINE SYMBOL 211 of iconic European monuments situates the impressive monumentality of the pyramids for guide users. The Baedeker guides became a definitive reference for key cultural sites. In 1942, Germany’s attacks on English cities followed the guides, since they outlined places of historical and thus military significance. 9.11 29.9792° N, 31.1344° E, Karl Baedeker, Egypt and the Sudân: Handbook for Travelers (Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1908). The Baedecker guides are considered the first true mass-produced series of travel guides. This page from the 1908 edition of Egypt and the Sudan shows their exemplary depiction of key building sites. The Pyramids of Gizeh (Giza) are drawn to scale, with a key describing the line-type variations and alphabet indicators of subsites along the recommended route. The route itself is described in the text and inscribed on the map as a dashed line. A graphic comparison of heights
212 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS 9.12 51.5370° N, 0.0380° W, London County Council, Municipal Map of London, 1913. Scale: 1:10,560 (shown at half size). The London County Council map is overlaid on a standard Ordnance Survey (six inches equal to one mile) and embedded with detailed information on the political boundaries, open-space jurisdictions, transportation infrastructure, and public buildings of the city. Six boundary types are noted with lines and letters, eight public buildings with hatches and fills, three park systems with color variations and hatches, 9.13 51.5370° N, 0.0380° W, Google, Standard Map with Transit, Bicycling and Traffic Overlays, 2014. Scale: approx. 1:21,120. The Google Map—introduced as a Web-based product in 2005— radically changed the map-user experience. The Web-interface allows for mass customization of a dynamic map through zooming, panning, rotating, and changing views and visible layers. The practicality and functionality rate so highly with users that they become desensitized to the underlying representational choices. The continuous integration and three transit systems with colored lines in red, green, and yellow. These last crisscrossing routes read to the contemporary eye as an overlay of traffic information [FIG. 9.13] but here represent the tramways (red), the underground railroad (green), and the omnibus routes (yellow). of additional features—routing, traffic, transit routes, perspectival views, terrain depiction, satellite imagery— pushes the product beyond traditional map capacities. In fact, the map is rarely used for its pure map capacities, and the representation of the roads, for example, has lost some clarity, coding, and specificity in newer versions. The map becomes a repository of linked data rather than a legible depiction of a given geography.
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LINE SYMBOL 215 9.14 52.2100° N, 0.1300° E, Alison and Peter Smithson, Cambridge Walks, 1976, Scale: 1:2,500 (shown at quarter size). British architects Alison and Peter Smithson, in their studies of Cambridge, England, developed a pair of guided walks designed to explore the place from the perspective of the walker, when the city is recognized by its smells, its sounds, and its air “with the intensity we assume an animal knows its burrows and its ways.”1 The routes of the walks were planned using local knowledge and drafted in Mylar over the 1:2,500 Ordnance Survey sheets. The black ink lines are dotted and annotated with arrows and numbers keying in views and photos taken and published with the maps. The map pictured shows the trajectory of walk 1, noting its beginning, ending, and seventy stops. —— 1Peter Smithson, "Oxford and Cambridge Walks," Architectural Design 46 (June 1976): 343. 9.15 52.2100° N, 0.1300° E, Alison and Peter Smithson, Citizen’s Cambridge Structuring Plan: the Nature of Place Restored, 1962. The Citizen’s Cambridge project proposed a restructuring of Cambridge to relieve the pressures of population growth and increased traffic on— and reinstate the character of—the historic center. The idea was to better integrate the residential, civic, and university areas and to redistribute commercial activity to lessen the toll on the historic fabric. A hierarchy of new roadways and walkways is suggested as well as changes to the existing traffic patterns. The drawing conventions cleverly describe the traffic pattern changes, the new car-dominated structures, and the mobility-driven structure of the plan. CITIZENS' CAMBRIDGE STRUCTURING PLAN 1: 2500 SCALE MAY'G2 VIRSION A.&P.GMITHSON ARGHITECTS CITIZENS' CAMBRIDGE STRUCTURING PLAN 1: 2500 SCALE IMILE MAY'G2 VIRSION A.&P.GMITHSON ARGHITECTS
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LINE SYMBOL 217 9.17 46.0000° N 2.0000° E, J. J. Emile Cheysson, Ministère des Travaux Publics, Conditions de Navigabilité des Fleuves, Rivières et Canaux de la France, 1888. The Ministry of Public Works established a map division in 1877 under the direction of John Jacques Emile Cheysson, a follower of Joseph Minard’s methods of mapping and data visualization. In the map of the navigability of waterways, data is represented by its spatial parameters. The routes are shaped by the navigable width, the clearance under each bridge, the number of crossings, the type of administration, the profile along its length, the dimensions of its sluices, and its designation as a primary (dark blue) or secondary (light blue) route. The information is quantified but also drawn to scale, with small cross sections of each clearance and compressed longitudinal sections of the drops along the route. the eye to be engaged at multiple scales. As a drawing and a landscape, the textural variation produced through simple elements—black lines and material and topography— is exemplary. 9.16 37.9690° N, 23.7290° E, Dimitris Pikionis, Acropolis— Philopappou, The Paved Road Towards Acropolis, 1954–57. Architect Dimitris Pikionis’s project for a paved pedestrian route between the Acropolis and Philopappos Hill is an orchestrated procession articulated through intricate surfacing. The stonework respects the topography and history of the iconic site. The patterning, represented in this drawing, is rich and diverse. The looping line that guides the visitor is itself a series of lines produced through the jointing patterns, allowing CONDITIONS DE NAVIGABILITÉ DES FLEUVES, RIVTÉRES ET CAMAUX DE LA FRANCE. 1—RÉCION DU NORD ET DU NU RD-EST. 1888
218 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS 9.18 54.0000° N, 4.0000° W, Matthew Paris, Map of the British Isles, 1250. Matthew Paris, a Benedictine monk and cartographer from Saint Albans in North London, created this medieval itinerary map chronicling the history of the British Isles. It is one of the earliest surviving maps of the area and is remarkable for its attempt to draw the actual physical appearance of the country. The result is a bit misshapen. The island profiles are distorted—likely based on Roman and Ptolemaic maps—and the alignments askew. Yet the rich network of rivers and over 250 place names, marking physical locations and historical events with elaborate pictographs and lettering, give a fantastic and precise qualitative reading to the landscape.
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A symbol used to represent information on the face of a map or chart. A cartographic symbol may be a letter, character, or other graphic device. Cartographic symbols fall into two broad categories: pictographic and ideographic. CHAPTER 10 CONVENTIONAL SIGN
221 T o look at a map is to get lost in its lines, colors, textures, words, and symbols—all devices to represent the geographic entities found within the image. Making a map is not a purely graphic exercise, as the data, scale, extent, and use present strict limitations; yet the success of the map depends on its graphic integrity. A language must be developed to translate the three-dimensional surface of the earth into a flattened and reduced portrayal. The forms and elements of the landscape correspond to the forms and elements of drawing. Over time, cartographic languages have become more abstract and codified. Maps are accompanied by a key to explain their content. The conventions and symbols are extracted, amplified, and annotated. It could be argued that, along with coordinates and geographic specificity, it is the key that separates the map from the image and the diagram. Images and diagrams are reduced forms of representation that can be understood without guidance. The map, however, requires words, codes, and explanations to translate complex and layered information into legible terms. The key serves as the vehicle for translation of these signs between map designer and map user. Maps employ characterizing signs, or symbols, that denote classes of things, which can be either iconic (representations of physical appearance in a stylized way) or figurative (representations that assume a common cultural perception). Map signs can also be indexical, referring not to a physical object but to part of a notation system, such as coordinates and directional arrows. Certain signs—for example, the contour—straddle the line between characterizing and being indexical. A contour is not a representation of an actual object, but it does describe the geometrical form of a real thing. Map symbols, unlike other graphic systems, are tied to a precise location. They are relational. Conventional signs are particular to the form and content of the map. Seeing them in isolation can be revelatory. The listing of symbols and conventions is analogous to an article abstract, indicating exactly the information to be found on the map. But the function of the signs is not limited to summarizing content. They are the very instruments used to construct that content. Conventional signs date back to the early maps on which small conical forms and wavy lines were used to denote mountains and rivers. Signs were isolated and pictorial, pointing to the locations of key monuments. Eventually, these symbols were elongated and merged, transforming the icon into the representational fabric. Pictorial symbols remain a component of cartographic convention, often reserved for
222 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS buildings (schools, churches, airports, stadiums) and monuments. Linear elements are represented by line types; landforms with hatches and fills; programs and designations with icons, numbers, and letters; and navigational aids with hybrid symbols created from circles and other geometric shape and letter combinations. There is a wide diversity of conventional signs, with legends often exceeding the page space, relegated to supplemental characteristic sheets or, in the case of air and sea navigation, entire explanatory books. Charts, being maps designed primarily for navigation, are particularly rich in complex symbols. The charted VFR flyway planning charts rely heavily on navigational aid, only showing key geographical features, including peaks, lakes, and landmark buildings. The rest of the topography is rendered as white space on the chart, giving a highly edited and very specific view of the landscape. Navigational symbols sit boldly atop a faint and discontinuous terrain, carefully calibrated spatially to ease navigation. They appear abstract, with annotation trumping other readings, yet they distill and reveal key points of spatial correlation between map and ground. The hierarchy and alignment of information is crucial. While the location and types of conventional signs are dictated by geography, the representational style (pictorial, ideographic, iconic, conventional), size, color, and annotation is at the discretion of the cartographer. These choices have great ramifications for the aesthetic harmony of the map as well as the message it transmits. The cartographer must weigh the imitative versus abstract qualities as well as the relative size and boldness of any given mark against overall goals and objectives. The tools are plentiful, but their use has to be tactfully controlled. The maps and plans in this chapter are chosen for their diverse and adept use of symbolization. Conventional signs are paired with their maps, demonstrating the richness and precision of cartographic language and its application. By comparison, and with a few exceptions, the plan key can be vague and limited. There is inspiration to be found in the cartographic legend and great possibility to adapt conventional sign systems to a more pointed, nuanced, and specific design language, especially as our landscapes and experiences are populated with more and more signs, symbols, and informational overlays.
CONVENTIONAL SIGN 223 1 2 3 4 17 068 I-LAX C 00 0 00 0 110 101 10 5 25 10.1 Jill Desimini, Conventional Sign Typologies, 2014.
224 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS 270 280 290 300 310 320 330 340 350 80 190 200 210 220 230 240 250 260 26 25 24 11 23 10 26 9 22 8 4 7 3 2 6 20 21 22 23 24 25 25 26 11 26 12 5 13 14 10 5 4 5 3 2 2 2 3 2 3 4 2 2 2 2 2 4 3 3 4 4 3 4 4 5 4 5 5 5 5 7 4 3 5 3 5 8 9 3 3 7 6 6 3 3 2 2
CONVENTIONAL SIGN 225 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 9018100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 7 8 9 2 4 4 3 2 3 4 3 3 3 2 5 7 8 6 4 4 47 6 6 6 4 3 43 2 2 3 5 2 3 3 4 3 3 2 42 2 2 3 2 2 4
226 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS 10.2 ( pp. 224–25 ) 4.5655° N, 66.4453° E, Jill Desimini, Wind Symbols, 2014. Adapted from United States Hydrographic Office, Pilot Chart of the Indian Ocean, 1949. 10.3 35.0000° N, 18.0000° E, Visconde de Santarém, Carte de Freduci d’Ancone, Dressée en 1497 in Atlas Composé de Mappemondes, de Portulans et de Cartes Hydrographiques et Historiques, 1849. The term portolan describes a class of early coastal charts distinguished by a radial web of interconnected lines. The sixteen equidistant lines extend from observation points, and while they imply the use of a magnetic compass, they predate instrument measurement. The distances were calculated by human observation alone. The maps introduced linear scale and unprecedented accuracy to the navigational chart. The main coastlines are articulated through the density of place names, lettered perpendicular to the shore and emphasizing the importance of the land-water interface. Major population centers are marked with pictograms, creating focal points on the chart, while the extension of the radial lines over land and water speak to the continuity of surface and view.
CONVENTIONAL SIGN 227 10.4 31.0413° N, 91.8360° W, SCAPE Landscape Architecture, Portrait of Decline: The Gulf Under Siege. Originally published in Richard Misrach and Kate Orff, Petrochemical America (New York: Aperture Foundation, 2012). As part of a visual exposé of sustained environmental abuse along the lower Mississippi River and into the Gulf of Mexico, SCAPE depicts past and future wetland loss in relation to extraction infrastructure, hurricane events, and existing swamp lands. The pipelines create a crisscrossing invisible landscape, somehow reminiscent of the portolan lines [FIG. 10.3], guiding the platforms and tankers that populate the waters. Represented through icons and symbols, the dredge and extraction operations are emphasized. 10.5 35.1559° N, 136.0599° E, Tonsai Fujita, Ezo Kokyo Yochi Zenzu, Tonsai Fujita Royo, Hashimoto Ransi Shukuzu, 1854. Scale: 1:360,000 (shown at half size). The full-color wood block–print map focuses on the land and sea routes through the Ezo region of northern Japan. The relief is shown pictorially, and the larger symbols, in yellow circles, mark the cardinal directions, oriented according to the direction listed (following the tradition of earlier table-viewed maps). The place names are indicated with katakana characters along the coastline, bearing similarity to the Visconde de Santarém portolan chart [FIG. 10.3]. The names are located land side for larger land masses with more explored coastlines and waterside in more intricate and enigmatic areas. The mountainous terrain forms a visual backdrop to the coastline, framing the figure of the water.
228 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS 10.6 35.7739° N, 78.6519° W, Denis Wood, Fences. Originally published in Everything Sings: Maps for a Narrative Atlas (Los Angeles: Siglio Press, 2013). Cartographer, artist, and design educator Denis Wood began mapping his neighborhood, Boylan Heights, with his North Carolina State landscape architecture students in the mid 1980s. New to the discipline, Wood based the studio on his expertise—observing and mapping the environment—encouraging his students to see and draw 10.7 33.3330° N, 115.8340° W, Lateral Office, Water Economies / Water Ecologies, Salton Sea, 2009–10. The Lateral Office Salton Sea project devises three types of coastal development—ecological, industrial, and recreational—through mobile, floating water pads that regulate salinity. The different water pads plug into the grid and are interconnected to filter water and harvest salt. Conventional signs and symbols are used to describe the twelve typological variants. unconventional elements in the neighborhood. They focused on smells, sounds, animal highways or elevated utility lines, Halloween pumpkins, geology, property values, ownership, infrastructure, traffic signs, and fences. The power of the resultant atlas is in the invention both of the map themes and the graphic conventions used to describe them. Through the spatial distribution and material quality, the physical and implied socioeconomic characteristics of the neighborhood are revealed. The forms are abstracted, keyed, and deployed with scalar and spatial fidelity effectively across the plan. 2’- 4’ wire 5’- 8’ wire 2’- 4’ picket 5’ - 8’ picket 2’- 4’ chain link 5’- 8’ chain link 2’- 4’ masonry 5’- 8’ masonry 2’- 4’ pipes with string 5’- 8’ pipes with string 2’- 4’ hedges 5’- 8’ hedges 2’- 4’ wood 5’- 8’ wood 2’- 4’ wrought iron 5’- 8’ wrought iron 2’- 4’ wire 5’- 8’ wire 2’- 4’ picket 5’ - 8’ picket 2’- 4’ chain link 5’- 8’ chain link 2’- 4’ masonry 5’- 8’ masonry 2’- 4’ pipes with string 5’- 8’ pipes with string 2’- 4’ hedges 5’- 8’ hedges 2’- 4’ wood 5’- 8’ wood 2’- 4’ wrought iron 5’- 8’ wrought iron
CONVENTIONAL SIGN 229 1 2 3 4 5 6 1b 2b 3b 4b fresh water is harvested from water harvesting pools sedimentation tanks water filtration water processed in settling tanks fresh water stored in tanks or underground water pools water exported to cities or agriculture hyper salinated water is harvested from salt pools and allowed to evaporated in salt flats brine pools salt is stored or sent on trucks for export 1 2 3 2b 3b salinated agricultural water is intercepted and collected water flows into naturally remediating wetland marshes remediated water is sent back into agricultural loop salinated water naturally evaporated to create brine marshes salt + brine water sent to habitat and recreation pools agricultural runoff flowing towards salton processing tank/ coagulant sedimentation ponds aeration/ filtration basins settling tanks water tower underground water storage greenhouses agri.wetland salt flats brine pools drying beds - salt, sludge salt storage
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CONVENTIONAL SIGN 231 10.8 50.3714° N, 4.1422° W, British Admiralty Chart, Plymouth Sound and Approaches, 2010. Scale: 1:12,500 (shown at quarter size). 10.9 Jill Desimini, Dyke, Seawall, Breakwater Port Protection Structures. After Paul Boissier, Understanding a Nautical Chart: A Practical Guide to Safe Naviagation (Chichester, UK: Wiley Nautical, 2011), 138. The British Admiralty chart of the Plymouth Sound articulates the route from sea to land, clearly defining the navigable waters (shades of blue), the terra firma (yellow), and the zone in between (green). The edge is described with its protruding protection structures, docks, basins, mooring areas, and safe anchorage locations. The bathymetric data is precise, with lines and elevations, dredged areas, shoals, and cliffs, to ensure safe navigation. The general shape of the land is indicated with contours, while notable visual landmarks (forts, gasholders, radio towers) are called out with symbols. The chart requires a separate manual, a compilation of the many conventional signs deployed across the map, from the small purple teardrops for oil derricks to the linear offsets describing the breakwater construction.
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CONVENTIONAL SIGN 233 10.10 34.0522° N, 118.2428° W, United States Federal Aviation Administration, IFR Enroute Low Altitude Aeronautical Chart, Area Chart 02 LAX, 2012. Scale: 1:364,567 (1 inch = 5 nautical miles; shown at full size). 10.11 U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Aeronautical Chart Symbols, IFR Enroute Low / High Altitude U.S., Pacific and Alaska Charts. The IFR charts are designed for flights that will occur under instrument meteorological conditions. The en route low-altitude charts are used for IFR flight planning and show federal airways, magnetic course information, reporting points, and altitude requirements. The symbols and terrain detail reflects the needs of the pilot, with ground information distilled to the essential. Major topographic change is registered with contours at two-thousand-foot intervals; shorelines and water access points are marked; and populated areas are distinguished from unpopulated ones. Atop this faint base, rendered in pastel blues and browns, radio communication resources, airspacecontrol information, and route information are denoted heavily with a rich and complex system of symbols. LOW/HIGH ALTITUDE VHF/UHF Data is depicted in Black LF/MF Data is depicted in Brown COMPASS ROSES are oriented to Magnetic Northa of the NAVAD which may not be adjusted to the charted isogonic values. VORTAC VOR VOR/DME TACAN "L" and "T" Category Radio Aids located off Jet Routes are depicted in screen black. LOW/HIGH ALTITUDE NDB or RBN with Magnetic North Indicator NDB with DME LOW ALTITUDE LOW ALTITUDE ILS Localizer course with additional navigation function. HIGH ALTITUDE - ALASKA NAME N0000.00' W0000.00' 000.0 NME 000.0-00.0 000 Coordinate Frequency Identifier Referecnce Facility Elevation Radial/Distance (Facility to Waypoint)
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CONVENTIONAL SIGN 235 10.12 34.0522° N, 118.2428° W, United States Federal Aviation Administration, VFR, 2012. Scale: 1:364,567 (1 inch = 5 nautical miles; shown at half size). 10.13 U.S. Department of Homeland Security, VFR Aeronautical Chart Symbols, 2012. The VFR terminal air charts provide the ground detail and flight guidance necessary near large airports, in this case that of Los Angeles International Airport. The terrain relief is shown with shading and contours, the landmarks include airports, high and low obstructions, transmission lines, aerial cables, and sensitive nesting areas, as well as golf courses, parks, shopping centers, racetracks, reservoirs, lakes, cement plants, freeways, and bridges. Unlike the IFR charts, where the ground is muted and the instrument symbols vivid, both the ground and pilotage information are saturated. The chart is densely covered with conventional signs and place names. Elements are called out efficiently and discretely, with symbols, rather than drawn with true dimensions and adjacencies. RADIO AIDS TO NAVIGATION VHF OMNI-DIRECTIONAL RADIO (VOR) RANGE Compass Rose is"reference" oriented to magnetic north VOR SALEM 114.3 SVM open circle symbol shown when NAVAID located on airport. Type of NAVAID shown in top of box. Operates less than continuous or On-Request Transcribed Weather Broadcast(TWEB) OAKDALE 116-8 OAK T Underline indicates no voice on this frequency NDB Frequency Name ASOS/AWOS A VOR VOR OAKDALE 116-8 OAK Morse Code Frequency Channel Identifier When an NDB NAVAID shares the same name and Morse Code as the VOR NAVAID the frequency can be colocated inside the same box to conserve space. NON-DIRECTIONAL RADIO BEACON (NDB) (NDB) (NDB) (NDB) 116-8 OAK Hazardous Inflight weather Advisory Service (HIWAS) Crosshatch indicates Shutdown status Underline indicates no voice on this frequency HUMPHREY HUMPHREY HUMPHREY HUMPHREY GAMBELL 369 GAM DME Ch 92 (114.5)
236 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS 10.14 51.0451° N, 4.2013° E, Bieke Cattoor and Bruno De Meulder, N43 National Road Breaks Into Segments of a Line. Originally published in Figures Infrastructures: An Atlas of Roads and Railways (Amsterdam: SUN Architecture, 2011). In this drawing, Belgian urbanists Cattoor and De Meulder highlight the successive stages in the lifecycle of the N43 national road. They illustrate how the road has been fragmented, at various time periods and in different ways. In some instances, the road divides rather than unites the surrounding fabric. From this study, a taxonomy of intersections emerges. The figures are extracted, isolated and coded to analyze how they define the interactions between road and landscape. The series presents a hieroglyphic-like language of infrastructure; the figures are connected by straight road segments to form the composite roadway structure. The proliferation of activity extends from mountains to water, represented energetically with colorful confetti, peppered with symbols describing the typologies, and connected with dashed infrastructural lines (black for existing and red for proposed). The yellow icons indicate residentialscale projects, the blue are energyefficient proposals at the district scale, the red are islands of renewable-energy production, and the gray are places of waste treatment, recycling, and regeneration. 10.15 24.8111° N, 119.9283° E, CHORA, Vision Towards a Low Carbon Incubator Region: Taiwan Strait Smart Region (TSSR), 2009. The urbanism and architecture firm CHORA, under the direction of Raoul Bunschoten, proposes a largescale incubator region in the area surrounding the Taiwan Strait. The project includes a series of energyefficient prototypes with supporting infrastructure, deployed across the region. The drawing merges topography with installations using a point-based rendering technique.
CONVENTIONAL SIGN 237 Frame [Taiwan Strait] Existing Infrastructure Proposed Infrastructure [e.g. Energy network] Renewable energy production [e.g. Energy islands] Energy networks [e.g. District cooling] Pilot projects [e.g. Waste treatment plant] Proliferation of prototypes Energy eficient installation [e.g. Home - Improvement kit] Frame [Taiwan Strait] Existing Infrastructure Proposed Infrastructure [e.g. Energy network] Energy efficient installation [e.g. Home - Improvement kit] Renewable energy production [e.g. Energy islands] Energy networks [e.g. District cooling] Pilot projects [e.g. Waste treatment plant] Proliferation of prototypes
238 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS
CONVENTIONAL SIGN 239 10.16 41.3081° N, 72.9286° W, United States Geological Survey (USGS), New Haven Sheet. State of Connecticut, 1893. Originally published in Topographical Atlas of the State of Connecticut (Hartford, CT: United States Geological Survey, 1893). Scale: 1:62,500 (shown at full size). 10.17 USGS, Conventional Signs, 1898. In 1885, John Wesley Powell, the second director of the USGS, sought congressional authorization to begin a systematic topographical mapping of the United States. The earliest USGS maps were created at 1:250,000 or 1:125,000 scale but by 1894, the scale increased to 1:62,500 to allow for the inclusion of important ground information such as civil infrastructure, bridges, canals, roads, dams, tunnels, state and county divisions, hypsography and flood-zone representation and basic land-cover information. Contours were shown in brown; water in blue, road, railways, and building footprints in black (this later changed as urbanization spread, with cultural landmarks in black, circulation in red and urbanized areas in pink). LETTERING CIVIL DIVISIONS States, Countries, Townships, Capitals and Principal Cities. Town and Villages abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz HYDROGRAPHY Lakes, Rivers and Bays ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ HYDROGRAPHY ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Creeks, Brooks, Springs, Small Lakes, Ponds, Marshes and Glaciers. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz Mountains, plateaus, Lines of Cliffs and Canyons. Peaks, small Valleys, Canyons, Islands and Points.
240 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS
CONVENTIONAL SIGN 241 10.18 26.1300° N, 505.5500° E, Fairey Surveys Ltd. for the State of Bahrain, Ar Rifa, 1997. Scale: 1:25,000 (map shown at half size; key at full size). Fairey Surveys uses aerial photography to map extensive regions, beginning in East Asia in the early 1920s and continuing throughout Africa and the Middle East. The company is privately held and contracted by various governments to conduct surveys and produce detailed topographic sheet series. The Bahrain maps are straightforward, with watery blues, green marshes, red contours, and black and gray roads and buildings. Yet the key of conventional signs is culturally telling, describing the juxtaposition of history, religion, and energy infrastructure through the list of symbols. The industrialization and urbanization of the landscape is also reflected on the map itself through the settlement patterns, oil refineries, and aluminum smelters along the coastline. REFERENCE Buildings Prominent Building Mosque, Church School, Post Office Police Station Antiquity Dual carriageway 1st Class Road Secondary Road Minor Surfaced Road Minor Unsurfaced Road Road Under Construction Track Footpath Cutting Embankment Wall, Fence, or Bund Electricity Transmission Line Telepgraph Line Pipe line irrigation Channerl Qanat Prominant Water Tank Quarry, Pit Old Burial Mounds Cemetery: Moslem, Christian cemetery: others Oil Well, Gas Well Well, Spring Municipal Boundary Cultivation Plantation Scattered Trees Wadi, Wadi Spread Marsh or Swamp Sabkha Scrub and Bush(Heavy) Scrub and Bush (Medium) Scrub and Bush (Light) Escarpment Erosion Rock Outcrop, Boulders Sand Sand Dunes Coral Light Buoy. Apparent Low Water Mark Shoals & Sand Banks Trigonometrical Station Spot Height Contours .20-1 ALWM oW .Spr 25 C P.O. Pol.Sta Al Khamis Mosque
242 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS
CONVENTIONAL SIGN 243 10.19 35.6597° N, 139.3286° E, Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, Topographical Map of Hachioji, 1967. Scale: 1:25,000 (shown at full size). Japanese topographical mapping is a highly refined cartographic endeavor. The precision of the underlying survey information is clear, with its heavy focus on geodetic observation and earthquake prediction. The representation is elegant, using a simple and developed palette to convey the complexity and texture of the landscape. The conventional signs are indexical yet capable of directly describing the physical and spatial characteristics of the terrain. The contours are expressive, the transportation infrastructure delineated, the building density evident, and the waterway engineering legible. 10.20–22 ( p. 244–49 ) Institut Géographique National (IGN), Spécimens des Principales Cartes (Paris: IGN, 1949), 20–21, 30–31, 42–43. The IGN was founded in 1940 and charged with the task of mapping France and all of its territories. Emerging from the Geographic Service of the Army, the IGN used military resources, including planes and specialized airfield access, to enable the mapping of over 12 million square kilometers. The Spécimens de Principales Cartes is an early catalog describing the conventions behind the maps, paired with the enactment of the conventions in situ, to scale and geographically precise. While conventional signs and legends are usually relegated `to the corner of the map, here they are shown side by side, giving equal weight to the isolated symbols and the composite map.
244 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS SIGNES CONVENTIONNELS DE LA CARTE DE FRANCE AU50.000E EN COULEURS (TYPE 1922) Routes Nationales R te Nat le no de a de Grande Communication Chemins réguliérement entreterus réguliérement entreterus avec arbres sans arbre 1 2 Chemins d' exploitation, Laies forestières Sentiers, Layons Sentier muletier, 1-bon, 2-mauvais Route en dèblai (encaissée) Route en remblai (en chaussée) Route en encorbellement (èn corniche) Route en tunnel Chemin de fer á 4 voies Chemin de fer á 2 voies Chemin de fer á 2 voie unique Chemin de fer á 2 voie étroite Ligne en tunnel Gare, Station, Halte, Arrât, Garde-Barrière Câble transporteur-Télephérique Câble transporteur de force électrique Viaduc Passage Supérieur (en dessus) Passage inférieur (en dessous) Passage á niveau Limite d'Etat'(avec bornes) Limite de Département Limite d'Arrondissement Limite de Canton Limite de Commune Courbes, Rochers et èboulis Glaciers et rochers Figuré du terrain Bois Broussailles Vergers Vignes Houblonnieres 0,7 · 21,5 60 Sal Sal de Population (en milliers d'habitants) Point coté Points géodésiques Signal de 1.er ordre Signal de 2.e ordre Signal de 3.e ordre Eglise (Clocher) Haies ou Clotures végétables Carriére à ciel ouvert Carriére souterraine Manufacture, Fabrique (à moteur non hydraulique) Forge, Usine (à moteur hydraulique) Moulin á vent. Eolienne Moulin à eau Croia, Caloaire, Tombe, Vierge Eglise isolée, Chapelle, Ermitage, Oratoire Eglise Réservoir d eau potable, Abreuvair, Lavoir Rvvv ABt LT Pts Fne Cite Pr d;E Sce Tron Elec Port Gare Ecse Puits, Fontaine, Citerne, Prise d'eau, Source, Etag périodique Marais Lac, Etang Permanent Canal navigable, Port, Gare d'eau, Ecluse Ruisseau (point oú commence le flottage) (point oú commence la navigation fluviale) Riviére de moins de 10m, Ruisseau important Riviére large de 10 à 20m (point uú commence la navigation maritime) Fleuve ou Riviére de largeur supérieureà 20m
CONVENTIONAL SIGN 245 CARTE DE FRANCE AU 50.000e EN COULEURS (TYPE 1922) (No 32 du Catalogue — 1er Fascicle) Systéme de projection : Projection conforme de Lambert____________(l'ellipsoïde de Clarke.) Documents de base : Levéa à la Planchette et stéréotopographiques au 10.000e, au 20.000e et au 40.000e. Plans au 20.000e. Extrait de la Feuille XXXVi 33 — TIGNES
246 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS SIGNES CONVENTIONNELS DU PLAN DE LA RÉGION DE PARIS AU 10.000e. (ÉDITION EN 5 COULEURS) Route Nationals. Rte Dépte–Chemin de Grde Communication Chemins empierr Chemin d'exp/oit Vestiges d'ancienne voice carrossable. Routes en remblai. Routes en déblai. Murs de soutènement. Chemins de fer Tramway. Passages Grand cours d'eau. Ponts : (pierre-bois-fer). Ruisseau. Ruisseau à sec. Source, Puits. Fontaine. Citerne. Eolienne. Abreuvoir. Lavoir. Réservoirs (navigable avec écluse, souterrain. non navigable, de dérivation, à sec. Barrage et prise d' eau. Gué. Bac. Aqueducs : sur le sol, souterrain, sur viaduc. Etangs : permanent, périodique. Galets. Graviers. Marais. Tourbiére. à deux, yoies. à une, voie à voie ètroite en tunnel. en construction à niveau supèrieurs Signaux gèodèsiques. Eglise. Clocher. Chapelle. Pite Chapelle. Mairie. Monument. Gendarmerie Caserne, Hopital. Couvent Bâtiments importents. Usine avec cheminèe. Baraquement. Kiosque. Halle ou hangar. Tour. Point de vue. Gazomètre. Moulins à eau. Moulin a vent. Fours à chaux, à plàtre, à coke. Ruines, mur en ruines. Cimetières : Chrètien, israelite Carriere. Sabliere. Chemin de fer transporter. Plan inclinè. Câbles transporteurs d'énergie électrigue Haie, haie avec arbres. Levée de terre. Levée de terre avec haie Levée de terre avec arbres. Levée de terre avec haie et arbres. Palissade. Treillage ou fil de fer. Grille en fer. Limite de camp. de département. d 'arrondissement Limites de canton. de commune. Plantations Bois infèrieuers. Canaux Câble transporteur. Jardins Vergers règulièremt entreteniu irrègulièremt entretenu Chemin d'exploitation. Laie forestière. Ligne de Coupe Sentier. Coniféres Broussailles réguliéres
CONVENTIONAL SIGN 247 ÉDITION EN 5 COULEURS PLAN DE LA RÉGION DE PARIS AU 10.000e (No 54 du Catalogue — 1er Fascicle) Systéme de projection : Projection conforme Lambert (ellipsoïde de Clarke.). Documents de base : Minutes de levés ou _______ de révision au 10.000o.
248 CARTOGRAPHIC GROUNDS SIGNES CONVENTIONNELS DE LA CARTE D'ALGÉRIE-TUNISIE AU 50.000e Route nationale Voies carrossables et bien entretenues Chemin nicinul ou autre chemin carrassable Chemin carrossable irrégulièrement entretenu Chemin d'erplouitation et sentier muletier Antres sentiers Vestiges de voies romaines Chemins de fer A voie normale endessus Passages de rivière. Pont en pierre Ponl suspendu avec piles Passerelle Bac Cué Limite d'Etat de département d'arrvndissemen de commune de pleinercice Eglise. chapelle, honbha Muisons puits et fontaine Mouhins à vent et à eau Marais Dunes et Sables Vignes Ravine sans eau en éte. Télégraphe Poste Télégraphe et poste Nota: Les écritures droites désignent les Villes. Bourgs, Villages, Hameaux, Fermes ou Vsines et en général tous les lieux habités. Les écritures penchées se rapportent aur Foréts Bois, Riviéres, Cols et Lieur-chits chivers : Phare à fou fixe (portée en milles marins) Phare à éclipses Feux de port Redoute, batterie Cimetières Canaux d'irrigation Point trigonométrique Clocher: Marabout. points trigonornétriques praticable aux voitures piétons Bois Branssailles Bois Olivietus Polmiers T T T.P. 375 chretien 20 15 8 Ston 75 Tunnel Reublui 122 Fradnr en fer A voie étroite et Tramway à vapeaur sur route Passages Route départementale Chemin de grande commun on et dïntérêt commun Déblai à ninenu en derssous musulman israélite
CONVENTIONAL SIGN 249 CARTE D'ALGÉRIE-TUNISIE AU 50.000e. (No8 347.373 du Catalogue — 2e Fascicule) Système de projection : Projection de Bonne. Doucments de base : Levés réguliers au 10.000e, 20.000e et 40.000e. Extrait de la Feuille 183 - ORAN — —
250 Antoine Picon Cartographic documents reveal themselves to be ambiguous insofar as they are based on a series of compromises between conflicting tendencies and ideals. Conventional signs may help to identify better some of their ambiguities, beginning with the interpretation of maps as either pictures seen from above or as visualized databases, an opposition far older than one might imagine. The opposition is found in the divergent approaches to mapping taken in the Renaissance by Leonardo da Vinci and Leon Battista Alberti, two pioneers of modern urban cartography. Whereas da Vinci’s map of the city of Imola from 1502 represented a view from the sky, Alberti’s Descriptio Urbis Romae (Delineation of the City of Rome), conceived in the 1440s, consisted of a series of coordinates locating the respective positions of a series of remarkable points of the city, from the corners of the Aurelian Wall to major churches.1 With few conventional signs, a map tends to look like pictures from above, like da Vinci’s seminal representation. Too many of these signs, as in Alberti’s case, and a map can be considered the result of a series of operations of measurement gathered in a database rather than a visual representation. In the first case, the danger is to be abused by a pictorial character that is always somewhat fallacious since the map is never a pure image. In the second case, a problem may arise when the marking of an abundance of elements belonging to the database makes the map difficult to read. The general history of mapping is marked by an evolution toward more and more standardized and abstract conventional signs, which is in complete contrast to the rich iconography that characterized ancient maps, with their monsters and savage tribes denoting uncharted and probably dangerous seas or landmasses, tiny castles and church towers showing the position of fiefdoms and parishes, and forests, fields, and meadows meticulously representing the space in between. Despite this evolution, many conventional signs have retained traces of these former ages of cartographic representation. For instance, crosses are still commonly used to indicate churches. Color codes tend also to align on common perception: fields and meadows are often green, desert the color of sand, ice- and snow-covered areas white. Conventional signs thus relate to another ambiguity of maps, namely their somewhat contradictory Afterword CONVENTIONAL SIGNS AND THE AMBIGUITIES OF MAPS