The Map Room

A small exhibition of 11 hand-drawn maps of London (really, only 11?) at the Museum of London opens this Thursday. Done in partnership with Londonist, which has been soliciting such maps for some time, the free exhibition runs until September 11. Here’s a post by one of the artists, Paula Simoes, about her map, “Loos of London” (above).

Previously: Londonist Still Wants Hand-Drawn Maps; Londonist Wants Hand-Drawn Maps.

I mentioned Stephen Walter’s detailed hand-drawn typographic maps of Liverpool (and London — which made the Magnificent Maps exhibit) all too briefly in this entry. Fortunately, the Guardian had a profile of him this week: apparently Berlin is his next project.

Brian Nunnery has been doodling maps of imaginary cities since he was in kindergarten. He’s amassed a collection of nearly 500 maps, and he’s been posting them to his website — 20 so far. The maps, says Brian, “evolve steadily in style over the years, and reflect my interests in different points of my youth. In early high school, for example, I had still never spent time exploring urban life –- so the city I drew consisted of middle class subdivisions and corporate shopping malls. After college, they consisted of high-density housing and mass transit systems.” I’m reminded once again that I drew maps like these by the dozen as a child; unlike Brian, I never kept them.

Previously: Adrian Leskiw’s Fictional Road Maps.

Londonist continues to look for hand-drawn maps; there will be an exhibition of them next April at the Museum of London. They’ve been steadily publishing submissions over the past year, and want more.

Previously: Londonist Wants Hand-Drawn Maps.

Another exhibition of hand-drawn maps is now under way in the Philadelphia area: Nowhere: Selections from the Files of the Hand Drawn Map Association runs until December 19, 2010 at Arcadia University’s art gallery.

Curated by HDMA founder Kris Harzinski, the exhibition uses over sixty drawings to demonstrate the unique capacity of the hand drawn map to create sites (both graphic and virtual) where writing and depiction, documentation and fiction coincide to articulate locations otherwise beyond reach. The exhibition features works by artists from around the world as well as drawings by individuals based in the Philadelphia region, including Ryan Anderson, Becky Blosser, Keith Garcia, Andrew Herman, Jennifer McTague Janell Olah, Krista Shaffer and Perry Steindel.

More on the exhibition from the Philadelphia Inquirer and Harzinksi’s website.

Previously: Review: From Here to There; Reuters on Hand-Drawn Maps.

• Buy From Here to There at Amazon.com (Canada, UK)

From Here to There: A Curious Collection from the Hand Drawn Map Association by Kris Harzinski Princeton Architectural Press, 2010. Paperback, 224 pp. ISBN 978-1-56898-882-5 The Hand Drawn Map Association has come a long way since I first encountered it…  •  Continue reading this entry.

This Reuters article on hand-drawn maps is already turning up in a number of newspapers and other media outlets. Broad in scope, it touches on two things of interest. First, the publication of the book of collected maps from…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Hodder Geography is running a map doodle competition: they want entrants to draw “your own map of your world, real or imagined,” scan it and send it in. Via Thierry Gregorius. Not the first hand-drawn map competition, not by a…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Tara Pattenden writes, “I am working on a collaborative atlas made entirely of handdrawn maps. You can see the current results here: www.mapplers.org. I am looking for other people who are keen to be involved in this project. Either…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Julia reports back on the submissions she received after she asked readers to send in hand-drawn maps. “Slate readers sent in nearly 200 maps, and they ranged from hasty scribbles on scrap paper to elaborate, multicolored renderings. No matter what…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Cartophilia reports that the book of hand-drawn maps collected by the Hand Drawn Map Association (see previous entry) is coming out this fall: Princeton Architectural Press is publishing From Here to There: A Curious Collection from the Hand Drawn…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Slate’s Julia Turner is the latest to put out a call for hand-drawn maps, in a post that is part of her series on signs: The maps we draw for one another also have a certain ephemeral beauty. Each map…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Londonist is putting out a call for hand-drawn maps of London: “Draw a map of your local area, be it home or work, indicating all the corners, bars, parks, features and characters that are important to you. You can…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Hand Drawn Map Association is (a) in conjunction with Princeton Architectural Press, publishing a collection of hand-drawn maps, and (b) is running a contest, in part to solicit submissions for said book. The contest runs until the end…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Hand Drawn Map Association “is an ongoing archive of maps and other interesting diagrams created by hand. Whenever you draw a map explaining how to get somewhere or find a map or other hand drawn diagram laying around…  •  Continue reading this entry.

KVOA, a Tucson, Arizona television station, has the story of a Flagstaff cartographer, Alex DiNatale, who has reverted to drawing maps by hand, in the style of late 19th-century surveyors’ maps: “This is like a lost art,” DiNatale said. “It’s…  •  Continue reading this entry.

This is fascinating: a collection of hand-drawn maps — the sort that people giving someone directions scribble down on a scrap of paper or napkin. i collect personal maps people draw. one’s memory and perception of a place is very…  •  Continue reading this entry.