Like Most Maps
The map above is taken from a book titled "Japan: Book Design Yesterday", by Bernard Rudofsky. (Rudofsky is also the author of many other books, all of which I highly recommend, including "The Unfashionable Human Body" and "Now I Lay Me Down to Eat").
About this map, Rudofsky says the following:
"Like most maps, this page reads from the center outward. The distinction between plan and elevation is blurred; rivers seem to climb mountain passes on their way to the sea; hills mimic Mt. Fuji." (p. 31)
posted by Charles P. Everitt at 7:48 PM
2 Comments:
Is it true that most maps read "from the center outward"?
I like Rudofsky's comment and find it amusing because his first response to this map--which appears to rely upon a completely different set of conventions for depicting the world--is to point out a sense in which it is similar to the map-making conventions we're all familiar with. The comment brings out how this map-maker could even be said to be following the same rules as our map-makers...in a sense.
That said, I too was wondering in what sense our maps read "from the center outward". I think maybe what he's getting at is the way in which our maps of the world are most accurate (and therefore most worth reading) in the center. As we all learned in elementary school, as you move away from the center of a map of the world, it distorts the actual shape and size of what it's depicting more and more. Could that be what Rudofsky's getting at?
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