We use the term operative cartography to refer to the production and use of maps to expand our conception of reality and promote its transformation. Maps have generally been used as documents that represent reality in an objective and allegedly neutral way. Maps do not just represent reality, however, they also construct it in a speciiic way. They activate a limited selection of parameters which allow for orienting a particular perspective on the world. This orientation of reality that is

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... teristic of maps opens up possibilities for the transformation of reality, which can be brought into play by architecture or other disciplines. Map and architectural design cross over in a complex and productive relationship: maps and mapping become tools that can have an enormous impact on architectural projects which, in turn, transform the milieu. In the context of the discipline of architecture, operative cartography implies the use of maps as a design mechanism. This article will discuss the cartographic activation of empty space, in which emptiness is understood as an active parameter; empty space does not need to be illed in order to be treated as an object of knowledge. 1 Through a series of examples, we will look at some of the ways in which mapping practices can inform our understanding of empty space. Broadening our understanding of empty space through maps contributes to the expansion of methods, objectives and tools of architectural design, promoting operative relationships between map and project. From Abstract Space to Charged Space Modern space, characterized paradigmatically by Kant's notion of a priori intuition, constitutes the framework for possible knowledge. According to the Transcendental Aesthetic, space is a condition of possibility for the existence of all external phenomena. Space, in modernity, is characterized fundamentally as an abstract framework-it is a container without content. Heidegger refers to this modern conception of space, which begins with the Cartesian res extensa, as interiority or insideness (Inwendigkeit) 2. Modern space is the result of a project of mathematization that tends toward an abstraction of the concrete qualities of space, including both physical-meteorological qualities and phenomenological-experiential qualities. On a philosophical level, modern space is characterized as an abstract container; on a day-today level it is characterized as an unoccupied area. Empty space is most commonly and familiarly understood as the area that is not occupied by solid objects. However, during the irst third of the 20th century, there is an important reaction in the art world, and in literature and philosophy, against this abstract conception of space-or, more precisely, against the instrumental, technocratic and mechanistic uses of the abstract conception of space which gained strength during the age of industrialization. Beginning with the experiences of the artistic avant-garde in the early 20th century, Modernism turns space into the central concept in architectural theory. 3 Space, as it is conceived of by the Modernists, moves away from its purely abstract condition to become charged on both a spiritual and perceptive level. In 1974, Henri Lefebvre publishes The Production of Space. 4 The text presents a radical critique of both the conception of abstract space and of the idea of charged space posited by the Modernists. The critique is founded on the understanding of space as a social product. According to Lefebvre, space cannot continue to be conceived of as passive and empty; 5 space is not a fact of nature or a fact of culture; it is a product of social