I accidentally got off at the Copley T-Stop on Thursday and decided to kill some time at the Boston Public Library. I discovered an interesting exhibit of birds eye view maps from the late 1800’s early 1900’s. What fascinated me about these maps is how much they were able to communicate about the character of the regions they depicted. Unlike traditional maps which adopt the perspective of looking straight down at the ground, reducing architecturally rich buildings into simple squares, these maps described the spatial relationship between buildings, roads and parks in a way that better communicated a sense of developing community.
Granted, If I had to navigate a burgeoning mill town like Waltham or lowell circa late 1800’s I would opt for a traditional map with a flat and efficient representation of the streets and buildings. But this all got me thinking about what gets lost in the process of visual reduction for purposes of iconic or symbolic representation.
I think there is a process of transcoding which occurs when visual information is simplified for information graphics such as maps. For example, the Boston Subway map is about as abstract and efficient a representation of Boston as you can get; an entire city reduced to 4 colored lines. On the opposite side of the spectrum would be experiencing the city in person on foot.
By reducing the entire experience of a city into 4 colored lines you lose anything resembling the regions character or the character of it’s people. Of course you gain an enormous level of clarity when it comes to navigating the subway (although, I should remind you that I did get off at Copley by accident). I think these birds eye view maps were are a interesting representation intersection between symbolic and realistic representation of space. The exhibit is free so check it out if you get a chance.