The graphic rendering of this information – the map – illuminates vital spatial relationships that often remain hidden in nebulous clouds of tables and text. Since the duration of their validity rests on the accuracy and timeliness of their information, maps, especially those related to politics, are particularly vulnerable to the motions of time and the ideologies of their makers.

Contrary to their more benign image, maps always make a ‘point’. Political maps in particular must tell a story; in this sense, they are like modern-day descendants of the cave paintings through which early humans formed their idiosyncratic visions of the world. Today’s maps maintain the cave painting’s abundance of subjective parameters – colors, proportions, and iconography – that influence the viewer’s perception.

The endless volume of data that one can compress into political maps (demographics, history, resources, economic progress and regress…) require filtering, and although maps are produced using sophisticated Geographic Information Systems (GIS), satellite imagery, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and other geo-related computer programs, the most important part of map creation is the distinctly human decision of what the map needs to ‘say’ – what data need to be integrated, or left out, or reconfigured.

During times of conflict, the necessary instruments for planning military tactics are concentrated in the general’s war room; discussions inevitably center around maps. At the onset of any campaign, decision-makers are constantly reviewing maps to develop strategy, evaluate performance, identify strengths and compensate for weaknesses. Just as generals have always used maps to illustrate and defend strategies to their political superiors, architects are now using maps to justify their ideas on the basis of climate, topography, politics, or demographics. These maps allow the architect to construct her or his own world vision, to illustrate emergent trends and to identify new opportunities. They are both the means to and examples of the earth’s continuous redefinition.

Theo Deutinger is an architect and global planner.
The text was made in collaboration with Brendan McGetrick.

1. ‘Tactical cartography: mapping the political battlefield and targeting campaign opportunities in the computer age’. Campaigns & Elections, April 4, 1999, by Charles Lindauer