Reading the territory through maps, timelines, sections, and flow representations

Maps are developed first to know, then to act, as André Corboz notes in his influential text on the territory as a palimpsest written in 1983. Maps can provide new knowledge and a new understanding of a territory, and they permit one to make a step toward the design project. Maps can be profitably developed by selecting layers to be represented, pursuant to the method developed by Ian McHarg, considered an antecedent to GIS, which was subsequently adopted and reinterpreted by many. By critically selecting and overlapping layers, representing both material and immaterial conditions, one can reveal existing relationships in a given territory. Timelines represent another meaningful tool for depicting transformations: the sequences of events affecting a territory and their relationships with global events and/or policies can reveal ongoing trajectories of development. Sections have a tradition in the planning and landscape architecture fields - from those elaborated by Alexander von Humboldt showing the relationship between altitudes and species, to the Patrick Geddes’ valley section, to the contemporary examples of Bernardo Secchi and Paola Viganò. They are a useful tool for addressing the ground and its thickness. Representing the flows of materials by means of maps or sections, as often done by Pierre Bélanger, can offer important insights for landscape projects, highlighting opportunities for intervention. Conveying this type of metabolic perspective to students is highly important today, to stimulate their awareness of the flows of materials and waste generation. This contribution will gather examples - maps, timelines, sections, and flow representations – including student work developed in landscape architecture modules at Politecnico di Milano, to show possible ways to read the territory for future landscape architects.