Maps, space and body: connecting mental representations of space to the production of space

Anna Kholina

This exposition investigates the relationship between maps, space and body. It looks at mental maps — images of the environment that we hold in our memory. It argues that a map we store in our minds is not merely a functional device for navigation, but a system of signs, values and meanings that allow us to re-imagine the space, appropriate it and develop new social practices. The study places mental images inside Lefebvre's triad of social space (Lefebvre, 1991). It suggests that mental images are a manifestation of the third component of the triad, the lived space, which includes alternative imaginations, symbolic values and appropriations of space. The exposition explores this claim via a dataset of 37 mental maps created by Masters-level students at Aalto University in Finland in November 2018. By qualitatively analysing the contents and the morphology of the hand-drawn maps, it traces how the lived space is both passively perceived and actively re-imagined. The main contribution of the exposition is bringing the imagined space to the attention of urban planning professionals. It suggests that the distorted, inconsistent and idiosyncratic mental images are more than a reduced schema of a physical environment. They support alternative re-imagining and catalyse the process of creative appropriation, enabling bottom-up urban transformation.

HOME

Paths

1. INTRODUCTION

5. METHODS

9. REFERENCES

Landmarks

Nodes

Districts

Edges

2. COGNITIVE MAPS

6. RESULTS

One of the main contributions of Lynch's work was transforming a messy and idiosyncratic mental image into a representation which makes it possible to compare the mental images of different spaces. He believed that the contents of city images could be classified into five types of elements: paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks (1960). A highly imageable (apparent, legible, or visible) city is one with distinct and identifiable elements which are connected in a meaningful way. Imageability as a quality of the environment can be analysed by reading mental images as a combination of paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks, a unified procedure he developed for cities like Boston and Los Angeles, and applied later to other places (Appleyard, 1973).

Despite its universality, this approach has limitations. All the five elements of Lynch's mental image (paths, nodes, landmarks, edges and districts) refer to physical elements or perceptible objects, suggesting that the form is what defines the mental image. This view does not take into account the influence of functional or symbolic meaning and the way people actively interact with environment. According to Yadav, what Lynch studied was an “implicitly passive or responsive mode of perception” (1987, p. 6) which separated physical form from meaning.

The role of mental images beyond navigation was also not clear in Lynch’s work. How are mental images connected to human behaviour? Why is a strong mental image better than a weak one? Lynch argued that mental images are as important for well-being as they are for way-finding, but establishing this connection was not the aim of his work:

The study may have analysed the nature of the way finding image accurately enough. But it only assumed its importance and never demonstrated it. What do people care if they have a vivid image of their locality? (Lynch, 1984, p. 154).

4. RESEARCH QUESTION

3. MENTAL IMAGES

7. DISCUSSION

4. RESEARCH QUESTION

8. CONCLUSION

Tip

Tip