Mappa mundi

...or "Is this the maddest building in Edinburgh?"

This is the Map Library of the National Library of Scotland. No doubt an architect once looked at it and said, This is beautiful. I won't say it's ugly, preferring instead to think of it as some kind of mad scientist's vision gone horribly right.

I tried all sorts of angles to get it as it faces on to quite a narrow street, and I think this is now quite representative of all its postmodern horror.

Nevertheless it is filled with cartographic wonder I once read in a nicely written article. Apparently the smell of some of the old maps is truly awful, which I thought was an interesting insight.