“To ask for a map is to say, “Tell me a story.”
 – Peter Turchi, Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer (2004)

Cities have always fascinated us. They have also served as muses for writers, poets, filmmakers, painters and travelers. As nations across the globe increasingly urbanise, cities continue to grow into more complex reflections of our aspirations, habits and rituals. The city shapes its individuals who in turn shape the city. To speak of a city is to speak of its people and their relationships, interactions, attachments, emotions – love, hate, envy, disappointment, courage, tolerance – with each other and the spaces that they inhabit. 

The map presents one of the most primitive forms of how humans oriented themselves and others in space. Be it the clay tablets of Mesopotamia, or the extravagant maps of colonists and discoverers sailing across oceans in quest of new lands and territories,  maps have served as records of how mapmakers saw, interpreted and communicated the world to their audience. Maps can be technically accurate representations and guides of the earth’s terrain, but they are also reflections of their makers’ individual or collective ideologies and agendas.

What does it mean to map a city?

Mapping an urban space means exploring the multifaceted layers of city life, both seen and unseen. Today, mapping goes beyond charting physical features like geographical boundaries, districts, streets and buildings. Maps take myriad forms, depending on their disciplinary origins, content and makers. A map can capture elements of city life like festivals, commerce and social interactions, offering nuanced insights into the city’s nooks and the ways its inhabitants interact with them. A map, therefore, becomes a medium of communicating a narrative of the city, the way one perceives and experiences it.

WCFA is pleased to announce a competition inviting students and young professionals in architecture, design and allied disciplines to map their interpretations of urban life. The vegetable onion – common yet piquant – serves as a fitting metaphor for the layered city, where each layer unveils a unique aspect of urban life – an intricate whole shaped by individual and collective practices.

One approach to studying a city is to observe, record and interpret its public spaces, as these areas provide unfiltered glimpses into urban life. Public spaces are where quotidian rhythms and spectacles of urban life unfold alike. As cities evolve and diversify, so do their streets, sidewalks, markets, corners, parks, playgrounds and other liminal receptacles of public life. This first edition of The Onion Project presents a forum for students and young professionals of all disciplinary hues to study and creatively map a selected public space in their chosen city.