This Indian urban designer-cartographer will map your favourite city for you

Is there a city you love? Make it yours with a customised map, created by cartographer-urban designer Venna Sri Hari Kanth

Swetha Mathur, architect and faculty at School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), Delhi, gifted her father-in-law, on his 90th birthday, a map of Vrindavan, Mathura. It is a gift that he cherishes, one that brought memories alive and made his day.

“The map brought back not just memories of the place but also of the elders in the family who are not around. Unlike a photograph, with a map you get to ‘locate’ memories,” she says. Elements incorporated in the map include temples the family visited and the art forms of the area.

The map has been created by Venna Sri Hari Kanth. The cartographer from Vishakhapatnam is an architect, an urban designer, and also her former student. Now studying at the University of Michigan, Venna’s maps are sold as art on websites such as Kulture Shop, Dessine Art and Art & Found. “Maps are important as they help us understand a city’s growth. And it is difficult to read from outdated maps. Indian cities don’t have detailed maps and making a map is a huge task,” he explains over a call.   

A map of Kolkata that he made in 2018 as part of his Masters in Urban Design at SPA was the beginning of Venna’s tryst with cartography.

Interestingly there is a Chennai connection to Venna’s map story. One of the first maps was of Chennai and MS Dhoni. It was a tribute to the former skipper of the Indian team, who announced his retirement in August 2020. “I made a map of Chennai and Dhoni to show that he may have retired from all formats of international cricket but we could see him play for Chennai Super Kings (CSK). That map, Chennai city’s, with Dhoni’s face superimposed on it was widely shared among CSK fans on Instagram and also on the CSK official IG handle,” Venna recalls. The response to that map gave him an insight into how maps resonate with people — “My journey customising maps started there.” On requests from fans, he made several maps for the other IPL teams.

According to Swetha, what makes Venna’s works special is how he combines cartography and art. “The maps showcase both, and while doing so he brings out the beauty of geography. The work is tedious and labour intensive as it involves a lot of work such as verifying information, accurate measurements, besides ensuring that contours are accurate,” she adds.

A city’s topography constantly evolves and most available maps of cities and towns do not factor in those changes. Only major cities and towns have been mapped in detail, the smaller ones seldom have such maps. “A particular dot on a map conveys a place or location. That could be part of a memory or a house that belongs to someone and could mean several things to them. People connect to cities and maps.” The smaller cities he has mapped, besides Vrindavan, include Aluva (Kerala), Gulbarga (Karnataka), and Rajsamand (Rajasthan).