Mine — Mine Map Poster

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Mine Map Poster

Mine sits in the western interior of Yamaguchi Prefecture, and from above it does not read as one compact town. It reads as a set of valleys. Roads follow the low ground between wooded ridges, small centres gather where the valleys widen, and rice fields fill the flat floors between them. The pattern is spread out rather than dense, closer to a region than a single street grid.

The best-known part of the city is Akiyoshidai, a karst plateau of grassland marked by limestone outcrops and sinkholes. Beneath it runs Akiyoshido, one of the largest limestone caves in Japan. The city took its current form in 2008, when Mine merged with the neighbouring towns of Shuho and Mito, so the map joins several older centres, each with its own cluster of streets.

A Mine map poster turns that loose arrangement into a composition. The linework picks up the roads that thread through the valleys and the sparse lines crossing the upland, leaving the plateau as a quiet open area. In black and white the contrast between gathered settlement and empty karst becomes the main subject, which suits a place defined as much by its land as by its buildings.