My inspiration comes from the Ventures and adventures in Topography as practiced by John Rogers and Nick Papadimitriou. Not a definition, but a start of a manifesto:
- Essentially topography is really nothing more than the detailed study of place, an area or region or town, etcetera ...
- The walker at the edges of the city, the liminal figure who is not so conceptual in his practice ...
For a long time I was jealous of the London walkers, until I discovered that I had my own area where I could practice deep topography, my own liminal places at the edges of the city. My wife bought a simple walking guide from the Dutch Cyclists Union (ANWB) that covers the Green Heart, the area between the biggest cities of the Netherlands. A huge liminal and threatened area. It is the same size as the London outskirts.
This is our first walk from the book: Nr. 33 - Krimpenroute - 7 km.
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| Krimpen aan den IJssel - Vijverflat - Large 1970's housing estates at the edge of the village. |
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| Wild wet path - housing estate on the left - expensive new houses on the right. |
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| Most expensive housing at the edge between village en nature. I'm researching theories of land use, but have only started. Boundaries like this should be meaningful. |
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| Flat and wet. In the middle-ages water was actively drained from these areas making the peat-lands arable. This led to subsidence of the lands, making the land unsuitable for wheat farming but still useful for dairy farming. |
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| Signs of less stringent land use regulations. Informal constructions. Slight decay. |
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| Water control infrastructure. This area has been re-converted from farmland to artificial nature reserve. Re-creating nature is much more expensive than simply protecting existing nature. |
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| One of the original farms. |
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| Edge of the village again. |
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