'The Quantification of Urban Space' programme - Mapping and Measures

The tremendous international efforts to map the Earth based on a universal mathematical reference marked the beginning of a thorough rationalization of space. The resulting coordinate system of quantitative representation would determine the composition and management of cities and their buildings as well as their governance through labor and economics. Yet, the assimilation of quantification methods extended beyond mapping and thoroughly penetrated all aspects of governance. 

Mapping and Measures, explores the methods and modes in which urban space has been and still is quantified through mapping techniques, numerical measures, and visualization technologies. Beginning with ontological questions of what is mapped and what is not, or cannot be, this panel discussion moves from historical considerations of how space and lives were translated into quantitative values, how numbers gained authority, and the ways numbers mediate how cities and lives are shaped, to critical and counter methods of mapping, measuring, and narrating history.

This online panel conversation and its associated workshop, gathering scholars and practitioners from both sides of the Atlantic, will explore the methods and modes in which urban space has been and still is quantified through mapping techniques, numerical measures, and visualization technologies. Beginning with ontological questions of what is mapped and what is not, or cannot be, this panel discussion moves from historical considerations of how space and lives were translated into quantitative values, how numbers gained authority, and the ways numbers mediate how cities and lives are shaped, to critical and counter methods of mapping, measuring, and narrating history.

• Bernard Geoghegan (Media Theory, Kings College London), The politics of GPS
• Anne Godlewska (Geography, Queen’s University), Mapping ignorance in settler colonialism
• Ijlal Muzaffar(Architectural History, Rhode Island School of Design), Qualities and quantities in Third World development
• Jason Nguyen (Architectural History, University of Toronto), Measures of architectural labor during the Enlightenment
• Caitlin Rosenthal (History, University of California, Berkeley), Accounting for slavery
• Jaqueline Wernimont (Literature, Dartmouth), Feminist theories of commensuration