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

JANUARY 2012 : Leah will be in Madrid this month leading a workshop with Urbanscale about (among other things) cities and the interactions contained within them. Reminder: Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream opens at the MoMA on 15 February 2012.

DECEMBER 2011 : Wishing you all a happy and healthy holiday season, with hopes for a fantastic new year. Reminder that 194X-9/11: American Architects and the City (featuring The Buell Hypothesis) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York closes 2 January 2012.

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.