The territory - between - the map and the crossing

Mónica Castro

The idea that initially promotes this investigation relies on the simplification and graphical resemblance imposed by the mapping rules, resulting in abstract representations, difficult to identify with the real places. This problem incites on the one hand, a historically deconstructive research of the cartographic practice, evaluating the successive processes and codes used to transform reality in order to be readable and built-in the map; On the other, the action of walking is introduced as a tool that allows, by itself, an approach and a direct, detailed and complex reading and knowledge of a place, but also in its relationship with the map, confirming, reproving and completing, by crossing the reality, the information it provides. The contrast between the cartographic and pedestrian scale will be explored through a real walking exercise - exploring the current boundary line between the districts of Braga and Viana do Castelo, a line which initially only exists on the map. But walking on it in the real territory allows it acquire thicknesses, proving its existence and informing the motives of its layout, apparently abstract on the map. To materialize the line of thought exposed, the dissertation is divided into four parts: the first one incorporates four chapters and corresponds to a theoretical research that explores, on the one hand, the necessary processes to construct a map, and, on the other, the multiple relationships man has established with the territory from the pedestrian crossing, in order to gather the tools that the action of walking offers to explore and know the territory. After a theoretical contextualization of the two scales, we introduce the practical exercise of crossing the limit-line in Part II, structured in three chapters, beginning with the presentation of case study and setting a strategy for its analysis/action, then explaining the realization of the path, and finally, reading and interpreting the reasons for the limit-line layout. The map is used either in the preparation/realization of the route, either in the process of decoding the passage of the line in the actual territory. In this way, the walking exercise constantly practices the territory from the route and the map. Finally, in the third part are established conclusions and reflections on the topics addressed and, in the last part, we present the references and attachments, where an archive includes situations from the crossed territory, captured by the walker during the traversing, and is organized a dossier containing documentation related to the practice of walking.