You Are Here.

A map says to you, "Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not." 
It says, "I am the earth in the palm of your hand. Without me, you are alone and lost."1

In 1970, Waldo Tobler coined the First Law of Geography2: "Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things." Forty-plus years later, his dictum remains as true as ever, and somewhere in the many meanings of related and the changing definitions of near and distant lie the questions of how we construct and navigate the human environment. From the local causes and effects of globalization to remarkable shifts in worldwide demographics to the appropriation of virtual space as public space, the qualitative and quantitative relationships between near (and less near) things speak to, both, how we make the world in which we live and how we live in it together.

For these and many other reasons, Leah Meisterlin is an architect who is absolutely crazy about maps. Featured here are some of her thoughts and work. 

News

MARCH 2012 : After keeping relatively quiet on the topic, Leah's first contribution to the conversation surrounding MoMA's Foreclosed is up on Metropolis Magazine's Point of View. 

FEBRUARY 2012 : Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream opens at the MoMA on the 15th. Early conversation-starting from Guy Horton at Archinect here.

OLD NEWS : archive here. 

1 Beryl Markham. West with the Night. New York: North Point Press, 1983.
2 Waldo Tobler. "A computer movie simulating urban growth in the Detroit region." Economic Geography. 1970, 46(2): 234-240.