19 September 2016

Mappings and Recovering Landscape

Hello all, here are the questions I have formulated and would like to discuss on the two readings assigned




Corner praises the landschaft as more complete while condemning the landskip as only picturesque and having no relationship to those who move through it, but is there a place in the world for the landskip?

How do the concepts of the eidetic, Mitchell’s five families of image (161), and imaging relate to each other?




Corner repeatedly references the milieu and how mapping as an exercise can find order in it, but to what end should milieu influence the making of a map?

Corner asserts that “Extracts are the things that are then observed within a given milieu and drawn onto the graphic field. We call them extracts because they are always selected, isolated and pulled out from their original seamlessness with other things; they are effectively ‘deterritorialized’”(230).   

Corner repeatedly uses deterritorialized and similar terms in the negative connotation. But is there greater value in separating objects from the milieu to gain clarity or should clarity come from the milieu always in context?

How does Buckminster Fuller’s map and subsequent rearrangements of that map of the world help us better understand the geography of the world?

In what instances are Corner’s four mapping techniques unsuited?

In his conclusion Corner suggests new ways of mapping would be a “means of emancipation and enablement, liberating pheonmena and potential from the encasements of convention and habit”. Are Corner’s mapping techniques at this point already?

How could they go further as tools to democratize?

How do we as architects or designers begin to incorporate any of Corner’s four mapping techniques into a legible site plan?

Many of the maps Corner creates and uses as examples are abstract (in a different way than we’re used to) and would be difficult to explain to the general public Corner so wishes to empower with these better maps. Where then, does the responsibility lie in educating these very people in how to read these differently abstract maps?
 

1 comment:

Unknown said...

1. Corner believes maps that are highly artificial and contain virtual abstractions that remain overlooked. Reasons for this are due to the tendencies to view maps in terms of what they represent rather than what they do. So, do maps with more abstractions or artificial meanings convey more useful information than tracing maps? What are your opinions?

2. How has mapping our milieu, or surroundings, helped us gain more knowledge of a site/location?

3. Forms of socialization and spatial arrangement are evolving without the aid of planners and designers. Rem Koolhaas states, "the generic city presents the final death of planning. Why? Not because it's unplanned, but because planning makes no difference whatsoever." As designers/planners how should we react to this? How do we create interrelationships amongst things in space?

4. Corner's first mapping technique, drift, is a very far fetched and abstract form of mapping. It requires a lot of information and readings based on personal opinion. Is this a good or bad thing when it comes to mapping? Should the info be easy to comprehend?

5. Corner provides us with 4 good mapping techniques. Are there any other techniques that can help us designers/programmers create good maps? If so, what kinds?

6. In this reading, Corner really highlights the importance of space and how it should be mapped and used. What other sorts of topics should maps convey other than space? How can we convey them?