Walter Christaller From “exquisite corpse” to “corpse resuscitated”

Abstract

In most currently available geography books, spatial representations group sets of differentiated location-objects, which can be located (directly or indirectly) on the surface of the Earth, using latitude, longitude and altitude, and systems projecting this surface on a map. But in fact spaces defined with the help of cartographic projection systems are independent of the locations-objects which are represented there. That being so, once the location-object is represented with the aid of a projection space, the cartographic spaces which have been generated can combine the locations-objects so that they can be seen as geometrizations, giving rise to geovisualizations. But these geo-visualo-metrizations—presumed to be objective—can be used to formulate geo-interpretations, determined on the one hand by the a priori choice the observer made of a projection system and, on the other hand, by beliefs and ideologies expressed with the aid of explicit or implicit geovisions. One of the best-known geo-interpretations is the ideal image proposed by Walter Christaller in 1933, in which he claims to explain the central function of a location-object on the surface of the Earth, using a geometrization of its location in a regular triangular-hexagonal system. However, the initial geometric diagram that Walter Christaller used to solve the problem he raised is mathematically unsound.For Walter Christaller's direct followers, this theory is still valid and it is possible to use it to construct "models" which remain "useful" using amputations or grafts, despite the fact that one of the main components has been proven wrong by a description of reality. The "exquisite corpse" method consists in putting together ideas considered to be "true", with ideas that are known to be false, in the belief that the true will cancel out the "false" and make them come "true". This so-called "theory" was salvaged, by neglecting or obliterating three quarters of a century's worth of contradiction between observation and theoretical postulates, by dint of erasing and censoring Die zentralen Orte in Süddeutschland, by moving away from or simplifying the ideal triangular-hexagonal "explanations", by unjustifiably bestowing diagrams by other authors upon Walter Christaller, by inversing the logic of the "central places system" and, finally, proposing contradictory geometric interpretations of its principles. The amputation and graft process has continued without interruption since the end of World War II, more or less intensively at various times depending on the geographic linguistic areas.The view that this geometrization was objective has encouraged and consolidated ideological geo-interpretations based on a central hexagon representation, and a "geovision" has emerged based on authority and utility and the idea of “center” has become a toxic geographic concept.

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