sep2014-mappingrotterdam

this is the first step of my process prior to designing a subjective map of rotterdam. i had to find ‘dutchness’ in rotterdam for a school assignment. i barely knew anything about rotterdam before i started this walk, so it was an exploration for me. during this walk i captured some buildings or other things that somehow reminded me of dutchness or just things that caught my eye. during the first weeks at school i made some more walks through rotterdam with my konstruktor camera. by the time i had finished my roll film, i hadn’t even gotten the mapping assignment yet. i didn’t take the pictures for the assignment, but looking back at them with my mapping concept in mind, they do fit in. my subjective map is about getting to know rotterdam and conquering more parts of the city every week. while i was looking for dutchness, i started my mission on conquering rotterdam.

the second part of my process consists of information i collected during a class about mapping. as you can see, it’s a lot of random data. that’s because the class felt really random to me. we went from one subject to another very quickly, but I managed to get some inspiration out of it. on the visual i made a collection of the things that captivated me.

visual number three is a summary of a coordinated walk through rotterdam during one of our classes. we had to drop ourselves onto a certain spot in the city and from there on out we had to follow the directions we had gotten earlier. this walk mainly served as an inspiration for our subjective map. we got to test an app called 'track kit', which followed our steps and collected data while doing so. you can see the walking route and the photos i took along the way.

the fourth visual is a second route we walked while listening to short lectures being given about buildings and art we encountered. instead of only taking pictures, which i did during the previous walk, i only took notes of the information we were given. i still let my track kit app record my walk so i'd be able to check where i was walking when i wrote something down.

what i noticed about my walks through rotterdam, is how its buildings come from so many different eras, yet they are able to stand together in harmony. the rotterdam blitz destroyed a huge part of the city's historic centre. while the rest of the buildings were intact, the destroyed part had to be rebuilt. this resulted in the collection of buildings from different decades. rotterdam seems to be a city that never stops building. as if it's trying to show the world that the bombardment might have taken away the historic centre, but they refuse to wallow in self pity and come back stronger instead. you will find some examples on the visual, for example hotel new york (1917) in between the modern buildings of port of rotterdam (2000) and montevideo (2005). i decided that i wanted to use my subjective map to portray the diversity in dates of construction of the buildings in rotterdam.

subjective map results

conquering rotterdam: lasercut

to show which parts of rotterdam i have already conquered, i put the map in outlines and let the lasercut machine cut out the design.

conquering rotterdam: construction

i filled in the gaps from the previous lasercut map to show which parts of the city are from which era. on the top part of the map, you'll see the the historic centre that got destroyed in 1940 en rebuilt after. the more you go downwards on the map, the more historic remains of the city you'll find. and of course, the oldest part of rotterdam will always be the old havens (the bright yellow parts).