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

1. INTRODUCTION

5. METHODS

9. REFERENCES

2. COGNITIVE MAPS

6. RESULTS

This exposition takes the following questions as its starting point: What is the role and the value of a strong mental image beyond navigation and way finding? How is it connected to the production of urban space?

Theoretically, the study places mental images inside Lefebvre's triad of social space (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 31). The triad implies that the space is produced all at once in how it is conceived, perceived, and lived. The conceived space is constructed by planners, engineers and architects through designs, maps and policies. The perceived space is the space of institutional practices and daily experiences (Simonsen, 2005). 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 (ibid).

From the perspective of Lefebvre, lived space plays an active role in the production of space. It represents everyday life, where creative diversions and new socio-spatial practices emerge:

Contrary to the dominant space is the lived space (representational space), the space of the everyday, the dominated and hence passively experienced space which the imagination of its ‘inhabitants’ and ‘users’ seeks to appropriate and change (Ng, Tang, Lee et al., 2010, p. 414).

Read as manifestations of the lived space, mental images can uncover more than how we remember and navigate space. They can demonstrate how imagination subverts the dominant order of the conceived space and gives rise to new meanings that guide actions and change behaviours.

5. METHODS

3. MENTAL IMAGES

7. DISCUSSION

4. RESEARCH QUESTION

8. CONCLUSION

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