Where in the world?
I really love maps. I love the challenge of navigating maps, following their unique legends and minute landmarks. Globes and guide books can keep me occupied for hours. Knopf has a great collection of travel guide books that are lightweight, compact, and have handy fold-out maps by neighborhood, so you can see them up close and follow the paths of narrow European streets and alley ways without getting eternally lost. I like to get one for every city I travel to and study them en route. It builds the excitement of the trip for me. Yes, indeed, I'm a weird map geek.
Decorating with maps is a favorite of mine too. I love old vintage school maps and I adore globes. They just hold such a strong fascination for me - I am intrigued by all the tiny streets, meandering roadways, dots of lakes, those big old continents and tiny little islands. It amazes me still, how people put them all together on a single sheet of paper. Maps add a nice splash of color to decor, too - my favorites are the faded pastel ones in washed out yellows, blues, greens and pinks. You can usually find them at the flea market (photo left), or eBay, or if you're lucky, a local or online vintage shop like Three Potato Four (maps above right).
An antique map of Russia from eBay; some Space Age cool from Janica; Knopf's Guideto Amsterdam (hopefully, my next destination) and an inventive DIY Chalk Globe.
*On a side note: I've been searching like some kind of insane woman for the image of Sheila Bridges' wall map in the hallway of her Hudson Valley home. It appeared in the May 2007 issue of Domino, the one issue in my entire stack that I cannot find. If anyone has a larger image and would like to share, I would love to add it to this post. It's a really cool wall map!
15 comments:
i have almost the same globe collection as the one pictured above. most of them are in my garage because my penchant for collecting has grown out of control. they were about 10 years ago my main collection. i wish to do something with them again. perhaps a window display at RD.
Hey Victoria, that's the one issue of Domino that I actually own! (picked it up when I was in the US in May) I can scan the image and email it to you if you'd like.
I LOVE this post! I'm such a map geek too!!!
p.s. I hope you make to Amsterdam too. I absolutely loved my visit there last spring!
I love maps too. And the pic in Domino inspired me to look for the same. In my search, I found a Hagstrom store that carried extra large maps, and I bought a map of NYC (6'x 4'). Now, I can't figure out how to display it (frame it, keep it unframed...). Any suggestions?
Funny, I was just reading about this: http://thewhereblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/festival-of-maps-update.html. And I just recently purchased a map from Staples to hang up and put pins in all the places I've been and the places I want to go. Like Bora Bora! :)
Maps are so beautiful! I keep meaning to start a collection of maps of all the places I've traveled. I just keep seeming to lose track of them!
www.stylesavestheworld.com
I love this post. I am still looking for the perfect globe, but I can't live without my Atlas. I am constantly referencing it.
I love this post as well and it is so timely because (excuse the shameless self-promotion) my firm just launched a website for Chicago's Festival of Maps taking place beginning this November...
www.festivalofmaps.com
Am dying to get to SF soon - love reading your blog - it transports me there daily.
I have a map of Italy with intricate little drawings of what each town and region is known for. This was something I found one day at Goodwill during my lunch break. What a treasure it is! I'll try to get a good shot of it and post it on my blog for all to see. Not sure if it's out of print but I suspect it is (date is 1970, printed in Italy) Maps are the "sensible" wall art for lovers of this planet....(you always have such interesting posts, thanks for that again!)
Urban Outfitters has a great wall mural map of the world: http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_dynSessConf=7293232362754145415&itemdescription=true&itemCount=-1&id=12453262&parentid=A_FURN_WALL&sortProperties=%2Bproduct.marketingPriority%2C-product.startDate&navCount=3&_D%3AnavCount=+&navAction=poppush&color=&_DARGS=%2Furban%2Fcatalog%2Fcommon%2Fitemlink.jsp
oh! great post! my husband and i are big map people, too, and we also hope to make it to amsterdam within the next couple years :)
I just ran into my sister's room to tell her that though I knew I could not be the world's only map geek, I never had proof and was always met with crossed eyes when I told of my map-luv. Now I have proof! "Cartography is Cool."
:)
I have enjoyed your map post! A while ago I managed to get may hands on a large map book, which is now pulled apart for gift wrapping paper. The colours of a map are really beautiful! You think about the colours when you try to work out which ribbon to tie on the gift!
Am not into globes too much, but love maps and atlases! I have recently been hunting for vintage indian/asian maps (hope i can find one showing the old sik route...)
good to know there are others who enjoy maps as much! :)
I really enjoyed this post. I frequent often - love your site.I love maps. I have a collection of French & Italian maps aquired through my travels that have yet to be framed. I'm trying to find the perfect spot for them. I'm also seeking the perfect globe.
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