The thinking hand: sketch maps and geography in late 19th-century education

CARLA LOIS

Oxford

Seminario; The Oxford Seminars in Cartography (TOSCA); 2022

Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

This presentation is about hand-written maps, a very common tool to learn geography, but usually considered a minor or non-scientific cartographic genre, probably due to their simplicity, spontaneous creation, and apparent lack of protocols or standards. Indeed, sketch maps are the result of a practice that, at its most basic level, includes only the hand, a pencil, and a piece of paper to express an idea.My talk is organized in two parts:-First, I will focus on sketch maps: what they are, and when they acquired their modern meaning (because, as most of you already know), sketch maps were not something really new that suddenly appeared in the 19th century.-In the second part, I will focus on how they used to be made (a description of some sketch mapping methods), and the purposes for teaching sketch-mapping during this period.It is worth clarifying that sketch maps or handwritten maps can depict both places (experienced surroundings, such as personal itineraries) When we say ?sketch map? we usually think of those that represent how to go from one place to another. But sketch maps also depict spaces IMAGE (namely abstract territories, such as countries, regions, continents and world maps). However, here I will examine those maps that refer to ?abstract spaces?, never seen, never physically experienced. In particular, I will examine how and why students used to be trained to sketch maps of national territories. I borrowed the expression ?the thinking hand? from the Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa because in making sketch maps, it is the hand that inscribes/materializes the thinking. So following Pallasmaa?s proposition, I will consider a sketch as ?a temporary image, a fragment of cinematic action registered as a graphic image? (Pallasmaa 2011, 25).