ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of drawings as graphic sources for investigating
visually intangible conditions within the urban realm. The capacity of drawings to
reveal possible interpretations of the city as visually and sometimes emotionally
accessible information qualifies them as maps. Revealing a multidimensional view
of their subject, maps are encoded with many layers of technical and abstract data
reflecting the legal, environmental, economic, social and political circumstances
within a city. Through the manipulation of drawing conventions and the use of
abstract signs, maps guide their viewer through a maze of an artificially constructed
field of forces which define the physical reality of the built environment. However,
maps can never be understood as purely objective representations. While the making
of a map often involves a lengthy process of gathering and interpolating large
quantities of statistical materials, maps are highly controversial artifacts, which
register the prevailing political demands of their cultural context and the personal
input of their makers.1
