Abstract
<p>Contemporary urbanization, as a process extended beyond the cities, requires original design practices to contribute to the critical understanding and visualization of the multiple spatial and temporal layers that shape the territories. In this account, this article examines the geo-poetic mapping developed by the Valparaiso School of Architecture, as a radical means of exploring the territories and elaborating their palimpsestic representations. This contribution unfolds the geopoetic vision of the South American continent created in the sixties by the School of Valparaiso, in Chile, as fundamental groundwork to critically question the historic and ongoing urban occupation of territories and their representations following colonization. Besides, it presents the Travesías de Amereida, a collective and situated architectural study performed throughout the vast South American inland, as a unique geo-poetic practice in which freehand mapping becomes an original means of rethinking and redrawing the ever-changing American extent. Through the analysis of drawings made before, during, and after the travesías were undertaken between 1965 and 1985, this article outlines how the geo-poetic vision and mapping practices—that embodies iterative freehand drawings combining different temporality, spatiality, and situated experiences—have attempted to unveil the South American continent as a palimpsest: an open extent to trace the ever-changing footprints that reshape its content. To conclude, the article assesses the contribution of situated geo-poetic mapping as a critical design practice to study and visualize the ever-changing, multi-layered, and multi scalar-realities on virtually unknown territories of contemporary urbanization.</p>
Highlights
In recent decades, the urbanization process has become a global and fast-growing phenomenon, expressed in the multiplication of the urban population over the last 60 years, and reinforced by the estimation that by 2050 at least 66 percent of the world’s population will live in cities or urban agglomerations that need to be studied and planned (UN-Habitat, 2016)
Urban Planning, 2020, Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 205–217 understanding of contemporary urbanization as a process extended beyond the conventional cities and the hinterland boundaries has contributed to the territories being visualized as places where deep, but virtually unknown environmental and socio-cultural transformations are the result of the current local/global interdependencies driven by global capitalism (Brenner, 2016; Correa, 2016)
These new notions challenge the conventional binary means of reading urban and rural interactions, the geopolitical boundaries of countries and regions, and they call for new tools to read and represent the ever-changing territorial diversity. This understanding of urbanization has provoked a territorial revival in architecture and urbanism to explore new critical design-practices and epistemologies as a way to overcome the conventional and dominant technocratic approaches to urban-planning (Bélanger, 2017; Correa, 2016; Ibañez & Katsikis, 2014; Waldheim, 2016). In this context, situated mapping (Corner, 2014; Havik, 2014; Viganò, 2014, 2016) has become a key practice to represent, analyze, and interpret territorial complexities because it investigates the spatial dimension between large-scale geographies and local situations, and in the temporal dimension between the many layers of historical milestones that have shaped the territory as a palimpsest (Corboz, 1983)
Summary
The urbanization process has become a global and fast-growing phenomenon, expressed in the multiplication of the urban population over the last 60 years, and reinforced by the estimation that by 2050 at least 66 percent of the world’s population will live in cities or urban agglomerations that need to be studied and planned (UN-Habitat, 2016). The contemporary process of urbanization (Brenner, 2014; Kaika & Swyngedouw, 2014) is re-shaping the notion of territories towards multi-scale geographies, situations, and differences (Elden, 2013; Escobar, 2008; Raffestin, 2012; Santos, 2017) These new notions challenge the conventional binary means of reading urban and rural interactions, the geopolitical boundaries of countries and regions, and they call for new tools to read and represent the ever-changing territorial diversity. This understanding of urbanization has provoked a territorial revival in architecture and urbanism to explore new critical design-practices and epistemologies as a way to overcome the conventional and dominant technocratic approaches to urban-planning (Bélanger, 2017; Correa, 2016; Ibañez & Katsikis, 2014; Waldheim, 2016). In this context, situated mapping (Corner, 2014; Havik, 2014; Viganò, 2014, 2016) has become a key practice to represent, analyze, and interpret territorial complexities because it investigates the spatial dimension between large-scale geographies and local situations, and in the temporal dimension between the many layers of historical milestones that have shaped the territory as a palimpsest (Corboz, 1983)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
