Disintegration and subtraction. The city of Buenos Aires through subway maps

Abstract

This paper analyses the current map of the Buenos Aires subway, throughout ancient maps, in order to search for continuities and divergences that allow understanding how the territory of the city is represented by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires and by Metrovias S.A. The subway map, as a political representation of the social space implies a two way strategy, on one side, the explicit graphic and metric —what it wants to be shown— but, on the other side, what is not being showed. Like every map, the Buenos Aires subway’s, supposes a complex system of more or less abstract and schematic configurations. So, in light of this conceptual production, we wonder, specially, about the meanings built by the representation of the Premetro E2 out of scale from the rest of the map —subtracted— and about the lack of political boundaries and territorial representation that enable a comparison of the subway network alongside the City of Buenos Aires and the Area Metropolitana de Buenos Aires.