Drawing the face of Lima: Perrottet´s map and 20th century imaginaries of modernity

Abstract

This article is part of the research framework of my master's thesis entitled Los mapas de Lima: construcción de representaciones de la ciudad a través de sus planos (1977-2021), which reflects on the construction of representations of Lima through its maps, around the idea of "modernity" and was a reference for the urban changes that occurred throughout the twentieth century. These changes derived from historical processes, such as the rural migrations of the seventies and eighties, fragmented the physical and social organization of the city and placed some in privileged positions and others in marginal positions. lt that context, the first street guide of Lima for commercial use was created by the Swiss Oliver Perrottet in 1977 as a contribution to the process of "modernization" of the city, which was conveniently used by the State and Lima's elite to reproduce an ideological discourse around their ideals of "modernity. By means of this emblematic map of Lima, it will be revealed that although maps are seen as objective tools of cartography, they also act as devices of power and construct representations of the city that contribute to the formation of urban imaginaries that normalize marginalization, injustice, relationships of inequality and a sense of not belonging to one's own city.