Anniversaries
So we come to the final bulletin of our 50th Anniversary Year
and December was obviously a quiet month in 1963! There are very few really
‘mappable’ events from 50 years ago, but one that does lend itself is Kenya’s
independence.
As the BBC reported it at the time:
“Jomo
Kenyatta is certain to become prime minister after his party, Kenya African
Nation Union, won the country's first general election.
Thousands
of Kenyans ran through the rain-drenched streets of Nairobi tonight cheering at
news of the results.”
At a time when the celebrations for the life of Nelson Mandela have just
taken place, there are some poignant echoes from Kenyatta’s speech in which he
said that although his government aimed to free itself from British
colonialism, it would not try to avenge past injustices.
"We are not to
look to the past - racial bitterness, the denial of fundamental rights, the
suppression of our culture... Let there be forgiveness,"
Kenya is now the
biggest and most advanced economy in east and central Africa but it is still a
poor developing country. The important agricultural sector is one of the least
developed, employing 75 percent of the workforce.
Despite western
donors' early disillusionment with the government, the economy has seen much
expansion, evidenced by strong performance in tourism, higher education and
telecommunications.
For an eighteen day
period, from 19 Dec 1963 – 5 Jan 1964, the Berlin Wall was opened for the first
time, allowing West Berliners to visit family living in East Berlin during the
Christmas season. One-day permits were required. In what was a foretaste of
things to come, this could be considered a brave move on the part of the
authorities at the height of the Cold War.
Under an agreement reached between East and West Berlin, over
170,000 passes were eventually issued to West Berlin citizens. Loudspeakers in
East Berlin greeted visitors with the news that they were now in "the
capital of the German Democratic Republic," a political division that most
West Germans refused to accept. Each visitor was also given a brochure that explained
that the wall was built to "protect our borders against the hostile
attacks of the imperialists." On the West Berlin side, many newspapers
berated the visitors, charging that they were pawns of East German propaganda.
Cartography in the news
Just one article this month. The healthy debate on Sat Navs
v Atlases will be going on for some time yet and I came across a well-balanced,
short article that manages to come to a nice compromise:
Posted by Louisa Keyworth at BCS Corporate Member, Lovell
Johns, it does contain the rather worrying quote, “With geography in schools containing less teaching on
map reading, two thirds of under 25s would literally be lost if you asked them
to read a map, research has claimed.”
Obviously we need to refocus Restless Earth on UK Road
Atlas skills!
Mary Baker Eddy Library Mapparium
I came across this
stunning piece of cartographic art via a twitter post and have been amazed by
the sheer scale of the Mapparium. This glass globe is located in the Mary BakerEddy Library in Boston, Massachusetts. It is constructed of 608 glass panels
based on the 1934 Rand McNally world map. The Rambusch Glass Company artists traced these
maps onto 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick glass panels and painted them with a coloured
powdered glass mixture. Each panel was then fired in a kiln to fuse the colour
to the panel. Construction on the Mapparium began in April 1934 and by January
1935 the glass panels were being produced at a rate of about 50 per week, with
production accelerated to complete the entire project for June 1st 1935. Once
the panels were completed, they were fitted into the spherical bronze frame forming
a 10° by 10° graticule that holds the entire structure together. Finally, 300
light bulbs were installed to illuminate the globe from the outside. The total
cost for the project was about $35,000 (about $600K in current terms).
Designed by Boston architect Chester Lindsay
Churchill, he called his installation the “Mapparium”. It was an immediate and
overwhelming success. Within the first four months, more than 50,000 people had
come to experience "being at the centre of the earth".
Despite being on a concave surface, which is the complete opposite of
how we normally view a globe, it just looks right. Distances, areas and
relative locations are all perfectly maintained and as the eye is always the
same distance from the object, it doesn’t encounter the distortions that
looking at a normal globe introduce.
The Mapparium was renovated in 1998 when a new light and sound system
was installed and the panels were cleaned and repaired. On three occasions in
1939, 1958, and again in 1966, different committees discussed updating the map
to reflect the geopolitical changes that had taken place since 1934. In 1966,
the estimated cost was $175,000 to create and install new glass panels. It was
decided that the Mapparium held much more value as an art object, and the idea
of updating it was finally dropped.
It remains the only one of its kind, a truly unique cartographic item. I
did muse in my twitter feed that it would be nice to have one on this side of
the Atlantic as well. We learnt a lot about the UK glass industry during the
Black Country Experience weekend, so if anyone knows of a donor with about £400,000
that they are looking to invest and a building with a space large enough to
house it please do let me know!
(images provided by kind permission of the Mary Baker Eddy Library)
Better Mapping
We will be looking at a new format for the Better Mapping Seminars in 2014, based on what we have done before but revamped and refocused
on web cartography and designing for multiple media. There will still be an
opportunity to look at examples of what works and what doesn’t work and I came
across a good example recently of a map that at first glance looks good, but
then you start to see problems. I am not going to ‘name and shame', you will
have to come along to the seminars to find out. Suffice to say that it was
produced by a design company, not a cartographic firm and from their website you
do get the impression of a certain lack of understanding.
“Mapping
Maps are a perfect example of the importance of
good information design. They are functional items and not like conventional
packaging or written instructions. Packaging has to be attractive, in the true
sense of the word, and information design must be attractive too, in order to
capture the readers’ attention in the first place. However, the primary
function of any map is to help the user to plan or find his way.
Producing one that achieves this is no mean feat
and it is routinely under-estimated how complex a task it actually is – when
done well. Maps can fail in two basic ways: they can of course simply be
inaccurate and the outcome becomes obvious, but often only when used; they can
also fail when the factual content is sound, but presented poorly. Everything
on a map is symbolic and all facts are conveyed by implication alone. Maps are
not like written instructions and a high cognitive load is being put on the
user.
Different situations require different mapping
solutions. A geographical map may be ideal in one context and a straight line
diagram better in another. Scale is usually very important and simply making a
map bigger or smaller is not what scale is about. Scale is about proportion and
content.”
Restless Earth
I am very pleased to confirm that the Great Britain Sasakawa
Foundation (GBSF) have approved a grant of £2,500 to support the BCS RestlessEarth programme. This is the second consecutive year that the GBSF have
supported us with a financial grant and it enables us to continue to offer the
workshops to schools totally free of charge. We are very grateful for their
continued support. To find out more about GBSF, please visit their website at www.gbsf.org.uk/.
And Finally…
As we come to the end of our 50th Anniversary
Year, I hope that you will agree that it has been an incredibly successful
celebration of The Society. We crammed an incredible amount into the last 12
months, have had some very high-profile speakers, run an excellent Symposium,
published our 50th Anniversary Book and participated in a wide range
of cartographic and geographic events. We have recruited over 100 new members
this year and our total membership is now around 700. I would like to thank
everyone who has helped to make this year such a resounding success.
Do you read this far? I recently asked on Twitter if anyone
new of a good explanation of what differentiates a chart from a map. It was
sparked by a book that I am currently reading, from which the following is an
extract:
“The stock-in-trade of this old gentleman
comprised chronometers, barometers, telescopes, compasses, charts, maps, sextants, quadrants, and specimens of every kind of
instrument used in the working of a ship's course, or the keeping of a ship's
reckoning, or the prosecuting of a ship's discoveries.”
So my Christmas quiz question is, “What is the name of the
‘old gentleman’ referred to in the extract?” First correct answer e-mailed to
the address below wins a £10 voucher of their choice (Book, ITunes, M&S,
etc).
Best Wishes for a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
– let’s hope that 2014 proves to be as exciting and inspiring as this year has
been.
Pete Jones
MBE, CGeog, FRGS
20th December 2013
Email: Peter.Jones991@mod.uk
Twitter: @geomapnut
