Fantastical maps from legendary stories

The exhibition “Fantastical Maps from Legendary Stories” presents rare and remarkable maps from literature and film, bearing witness to how maps have served for centuries as instruments for explaining concepts, disseminating ideas and telling stories. It is conceptually informed by J. R. R. Tolkien’s notion of the “Cauldron of Story”, according to which fictional narratives and their maps emerge from a continual process of blending, layering and reinterpretation. A chronological route along the outer wall unfolds more than seven centuries of literary works, myths and cartographic traditions, while the centre shows historical maps, including early modern maps of Switzerland. The exhibition is shaped by the dialogue between the “Ex Carta” collection of fictional cartography and the map holdings of the Central Library of Zurich, which rank among the most significant in Switzerland.