Single to Totenschinken Hofstrasse, bitte

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I’m grateful to Ross Lydall of the London Evening Standard for the heads up on what the London Underground map may have looked like if Germany had won WWII. Never mind the map of Europe, this is how the map of the London Underground could have been redrawn if the Germans had won, or would it? An Austrian university librarian has imagined how the Tube network would look if we all spoke German, renaming the capital's 270 stations from Heidenreihe (Heathrow) to Hahnenzuchter (Cockfosters).



Horst Prillinger has used a mixture of wit and linguistic dexterity - Heidenreihe most accurately translates as "heathen row" while Hahnenzuchter could be read as "chicken farmer" - in adapting the station names. Mr Prillinger said the map had translations that preserved the meaning of the English words, such as Burnt Oak becoming Verbrannte Eiche, and "deliberate misunderstandings".

While the suffix "ham" means "home", he translated it as the meat, so West Ham becomes Westschinken. Here is Horst’s website;

http://homepage.univie.ac.at/horst.prillinger/metro/english/network_maps.html



For the history of Mr. Beck’s iconic London Underground Map see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/mapping-world.html

Der Untergrund

Die Linien, Bahnhöfe und Zonen von London Underground, London Overground und Docklands Light Railway (DLR). Als Klassiker des Designs macht die U-Bahn-Karte das Fahren im Londoner U-Bahn-Netz denkbar einfach. Diese übersichtliche Karte enthält einen Schlüssel zu allen eingezeichneten Stationen sowie die 6 Gebührenzonen.


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For more see TUBE BLOGS and TRANSPORT BLOGS in the Blog sidebar >>>>>

Mapping the World

Harry Beck's original 1933 Underground Map Click on maps for a larger image



It is acknowledged that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so by any standards the world’s most flattered mapmaker must be Harry Beck who devised the famous diagrammatic London Underground Tube Map. By the early 1930s, the London Underground network had expanded so considerably that it was difficult to squeeze all the new lines and stations into a geographical map. Passengers complained that the existing map was crowded, confusing and hard to read. It was decided that the network was too big to be represented geographically and the Underground commissioned one of its draughtsmen Harry Beck (1903-1974) to devise a more efficient method.





Harry Beck and his map



Basing his map on an electrical circuit, Beck represented each line in a different colour and interchange stations as diamonds. The crowded central area was enlarged and the course of each route simplified into the form of a vertical, horizontal or diagonal line. The diagrammatic map was produced on a trial basis as a leaflet in 1933 and Beck continued to refine it until 1959. For the full story see;



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/01/great-british-design-quest.html



London Transport has contributed a great deal to modern British Design largely through the influence of Frank Pick. The obsession with clear design and image was continued through to Harry Beck’s famous schematic map, commissioning its own “machine typeface” to make its posters, signage and publications clearer, building instantly recognisable branded station buildings and station fittings and using engaging and innovative advertising in the 30’s. Today London Underground’s trademark roundel is the second most recognised brand worldwide. The Directors in the 20s and 30s saw good design as good for business. By the example it set under Frank Pick the Underground was gradually able to change the public’s attitude to railway stations which had been seen as shabby and inhospitable places. Sir Nicholas Pevsner wrote that Pick saw in every detail a “visual propaganda” and he used this not only to improve the Underground but the environment as a whole. Charles Holden brought the Underground station to the forefront of modern architecture: This achievement is unequalled by any other transport company before or since. See about Charles Holden’s influence and his design for the Underground’s iconic headquarters here;



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/give-my-regards-to-55-broadway.html





Eisenhower Interstate Highway SystemClick on maps for a larger image



The map above translates Harry Beck’s Map to add clarity to the United States Interstate Highway Network. Its creator Senex Prime http://www.flickr.com/photos/senexprime/ set out to simplify America's Interstate system & thought London's Tube map was the best way to present a lot of information very concisely and clearly. In his own description;



“I have rendered the Interstate system in a much simpler form. I have made the "major" highways (those divisible by 5) the framework of the map, with the "minor" highways reduced in importance and rendered as thinner grey lines. Even with these highways, a difference in the greys indicates whether they are even-numbered (west-east) or odd-numbered (north-south). Dots on the highways indicate interchanges: large dots where major highways meet other major highways, smaller dots where major meets minor and tiny dots where minor highways begin or end. A full key at the bottom indicates clearly where each highway begins and ends.”



One of my own favourites is the Webzine b3ta http://www.b3ta.com/ which had a map challenge where people were challenged to create a map that told the truth. Not surprisingly there are many re-creations based on the London Underground Map including this one which portrays London as seen by tourists, poor things.





London for tourists?Click on maps for a larger image



Mark Ovenden is a broadcaster and author who specialises in the subjects of graphic design, cartography and architecture in public transport, with an emphasis on underground rapid transit. His interest in transport maps stems from his belief that they echo the prevailing social and political trends of the societies they emanate from. His Urban World Metro Map is a "playful diagram" showing "all the cities which have, are building or are planning to construct an urban rail system."





World's Urban Rail SystemsClick on maps for a larger image



Like with Harry Beck’s Map there can only ever be one which was “The First” and for the story of the first Underground railway in the world which opened to passengers from Paddington to Farringdon on 10 January 1863 take a look at this post covering one of the world’s Great Railway Journey;



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html



As for Mr. Beck and his map? Well, as these examples show the map devised and then lovingly nurtured (by hand before the days of computers) in his spare time for over 30 years has made this simple draughtsman in London Underground’s Signals Department one of the world’s most influential and most imitated cartographers.



Click on maps for a larger image

Anagram map of the Underground by http://home.greywulf.net/



For more on Architecture and Design see ArchiBlogs in the Blog sidebar.

Der Untergrund

Click on map for a larger view

Die Linien, Bahnhöfe und Zonen von London Underground, London Overground und Docklands Light Railway (DLR).

Als Klassiker des Designs macht die U-Bahn-Karte das Fahren im Londoner U-Bahn-Netz denkbar einfach. Diese übersichtliche Karte enthält einen Schlüssel zu allen eingezeichneten Stationen sowie die 6 Gebührenzonen.

CLICK ON MAP TO ENLARGE

'Real' Tube map goes on Net

Google "Tube" Map

Google continues its march towards World Domination by putting one of the first "real" London Tube maps online. The internet firm has mapped the location of the main Tube lines and added it to its Google Maps website.

Visitors can see the lines by clicking the "transit" button of the site. "If you want to book a hotel or make a restaurant reservation, you can switch on the Transit Layer and look for the public transport line nearest to the location," said Raphael Leiteritz of Google.


Harry Beck and his map

Londoners are used to the Tube map designed by Harry Beck in 1931. His simplified map consists of stations, straight lines connecting them and the Thames. Critics say it gives visitors an unrealistic view of London's layout. However, Harry Beck's map has created such a powerful impression that it dominates our perceptions of London's geography. A variation of his original design is still used by London Underground today, and Beck's concept of a diagrammatic map has been imitated all over the world.

Great British Design Quest

A new set of postage stamps celebrates a century of British design icons — from the Mini car to the miniskirt. The Royal Mail stamps feature 10 different 20th-century design classics. They include the red double-decker bus, the Concorde supersonic jet, the orange-and-white Penguin paperback and the compact Mini car.





Another shows the miniskirt designed by Mary Quant that revolutionised fashion in the 1960s. Quant says she was "bowled over with delight" at the honour. The Royal Mail said the original idea had been to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Mini, but that this was expanded to include other 20th-century icons. The stamps released Tuesday can all be used for first-class postage within Britain. They will be available for a year.





Is there anything more British than a red telephone box? Like giant red soldiers, they have been a landmark for a lifetime. The shape of architect’s Sir John Soane’s mausoleum in St. Pancras Old Churchyard in London provided the inspiration for the design by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott of the iconic red telephone boxes.





K6 phonebox - They were painted red to make them easy to spot.


Designed at the request of the Post Office in 1926 the K2 was the first production cast iron kiosk. Too expensive for national use, the K2 was produced exclusively for the London area. All K2 kiosks now on the street are preserved as listed buildings. Designed to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George the Fifth in 1935 the K6 kiosk was the first to be installed across the country and is what the World knows of as the red telephone box.

It is gratifying that two designs from London Transport have made it to the “Top 10”, Harry Beck’s Tube Map at No. 2 and the iconic Routemaster Bus at No. 6. For London Transport has contributed a great deal to modern British Design largely through the influence of Frank Pick. The obsession with clear design and image was continued through to Harry Beck’s famous schematic map, commissioning its own “machine typeface” to make its posters, signage and publications clearer, building instantly recognisable branded station buildings and station fittings and using engaging and innovative advertising in the 30’s. Today London Underground’s trademark roundel is the second most recognised brand worldwide. The Directors in the 20s and 30s saw good design as good for business. By the example it set under Frank Pick the Underground was gradually able to change the public’s attitude to railway stations which had been seen as shabby and inhospitable places. Sir Nicholas Pevsner wrote that Pick saw in every detail a “visual propaganda” and he used this not only to improve the Underground but the environment as a whole. Charles Holden brought the Underground station to the forefront of modern architecture: This achievement is unequalled by any other transport company before or since.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/give-my-regards-to-55-broadway.html

The London Underground map has been selected by the Design Museum and BBC Two's The Culture Show to appear in a shortlist of 25 items for the Great British Design Quest, a nationwide vote to find the public's favourite example of design in Britain since 1900.




Harry Beck's Map

By the early 1930s, the London Underground network had expanded so considerably that it was difficult to squeeze all the new lines and stations into a geographical map. Passengers complained that the existing map was crowded, confusing and hard to read. It was decided that the network was too big to be represented geographically and the Underground commissioned one of its draughtsmen Harry Beck (1903-1974) to devise a more efficient method.


Mr. Beck and his map

Basing his map on an electrical circuit, Beck represented each line in a different colour and interchange stations as diamonds. The crowded central area was enlarged and the course of each route simplified into the form of a vertical, horizontal or diagonal line. The diagrammatic map was produced on a trial basis as a leaflet in 1933 and Beck continued to refine it until 1959.

As the tube system grew during the early 1900's maps showed the layout as it related to communities and streets that lay above it. This would be a perfectly predictable and acceptable “design answer'” in the early days of the system since the early users would need to relate the comparatively new system to the streets and areas they already knew. These early maps were not Beck's and as the tube layout became more complex he realised that a major simplification was necessary. The use of lines drawn only in multiples of 45 degree angles allowed him to begin his simplification.

His task covered more than 30 years of development and in a time when cartographic changes were not achieved by “dragging and dropping” or simply “clicking a button” on the computer, this represented an astonishing degree of dedication. His early maps and lettering were all drawn by hand.



Harry Beck was an electrical draughtsman and produced drawings of electrical circuits; circuits used in the running of the Underground itself but his training had given him knowledge of the symbols and techniques used to depict wiring, diodes, resistors, junctions and valves. He obviously knew of the colour coding used on resistors and capacitors and had the considerable draughting skills to produce concise drawings ~ this was after all his job with London Underground, and as he lived and worked in London he had experience of the tube system itself. Familiarity with a design 'need' is usually a tremendous help when it comes to finding solutions to a problem and Beck's home in the north London suburb of Finchley was far enough away from the city that he would have frequently used the underground-rail system.

Beck first submitted his idea to Frank Pick of London Underground in 1931 but it was considered too radical as it did not show distances relative from any one station to the others. During 1933 the map was given its first publication (700,000 copies) and the reaction of the travelling customers proved it to be sound design; it immediately required a large reprint after only one month. Beck was paid the equivalent of £5.25 or his "Design Classic"! It should be said that Beck continued working on the map as the system changed, until his death in 1964 and this work has continued - more recently by Tim Demuth (and early on with Paul Garbutt - 1964), of London Transport's Publicity Department. The “simple coloured lines on white” are now used on so many other products the map is symbolic of London's tourist industry itself.


A commemorative plaque near Beck's home in Finchley


Harry Beck's map has created such a powerful impression that it dominates our perceptions of London's geography. A variation of his original design is still used by London Underground today, and Beck's concept of a diagrammatic map has been imitated all over the world.


Routemaster Bus

One of the most famous symbols of Britain is the double-decker bus, which was first introduced in 1925 when the London General Omnibus Company secured official approval to use buses with covered top decks. The first double-decker was the NS-type, but the most popular - and memorable - emerged thirty years later when the Routemaster took to the road.



Developed over nine years from 1947 to 1956 by a team led by Douglas Scott (1913-1990), the Routemaster was designed for efficient mass-production. By constructing a bus from the maximum number of interchangeable parts, Scott reduced the cost of the initial tooling and manufacturing and of repairs and maintenance too. He equipped the Routemaster with the latest innovations such as power steering, an automatic gearbox, hydraulic brakes, independent springs and heating controls.



Passengers loved the Routemaster for its distinctive 'brick' silhouette, with a flatter front and less prominent engine than its predecessors, and for endearing interior features such as the 'lovers' seat' at the back, wind-down windows and soft lighting. The Routemaster remained in active service for nearly fifty years. After several reprieves, it was finally withdrawn in 2005 except for token use on two heritage routes. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has pledged to bring back the Routemaster as a redesigned modern bus but there are doubts as to whether this is possible or practicable.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/12/routemaster-to-perdition.html



For more on Architecture and Design see ArchiBlogs in the Blog sidebar.

London's Transport Museum

It is always good when you meet an old friend again and after a two year closure for refurbishment my favourite museum, London’s Transport Museum housed in the listed Floral Hall in London’s lively Covent Garden, has reawakened from its long slumber looking even more attractive than ever.

The first section of the London Underground opened from Paddington to Farringdon on 10 January 1863. A second underground line, the District, began operating five years later. The two were eventually linked to create the Circle line in 1884. The early underground was a huge engineering achievement and very well used, but had one big disadvantage. Its steam locomotives created a permanent sulphurous fug in the stations and tunnels! For the full story see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html

The modern story of Covent Garden began in the 1630s when land formerly belonging to Westminster Abbey, 'the Convent Garden' was redeveloped by the 4th Earl of Bedford. Today overlooked by the Royal Opera House the former vegetable & produce market has been restored to a thriving urban hub with numerous shops and street theatre, particularly on the Piazza in front of Inigo Jone’s St. Paul’s Church at the western end. At the other end of the piazza you come to London’s Transport Museum.



This museum is child friendly with the opportunity to “drive” a tube train and speak to the “tunnelers”. It tells the story of how the Tube, trams and Buses made the world’s first mega-city possible – it is a refreshing antidote to the hideously overpriced theme park type attractions which set out to entrap visitors to London. It is £8.00 for a full adult tickets but under 16’s get in free making this a good value family trip to the Museum, The Museum Shop and the Upper Deck Cafe Bar nattily upholstered in the same distinctive moquette fabric used in the buses and trains in London.

The new Museum reopened on 22 November 2007 after a two year, £22 million refurbishment and redesign project. It tells the story of the development of London, the first modern “mega-city”, its transport systems and the people who travelled and worked on them over the last 200 years. As well as exploring the past, the new Museum also looks at future transport developments and how transport has shaped five other world cities - Delhi, New York, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo.


London Transport Museum's collection originated in the 1920s, when the London General Omnibus Company decided to preserve two Victorian horse buses and an early motorbus for future generations. The Museum of British Transport opened in an old bus garage in Clapham, south London, during the 1960s, before moving to Syon Park in west London in 1973 as the London Transport Collection. In 1980, the public displays moved again, this time to occupy the Flower Market building in Covent Garden as the London Transport Museum. The building that now houses London Transport Museum was designed as the dedicated Flower Market by William Rogers in 1871. For the next hundred years, this was the heart of London's wholesale flower business, famously trading every day except Christmas. The cast iron and glass architecture has an appropriate feel for a transport museum, being similar to a Victorian railway station. The major refurbishment has respected and rejuvenated the listed historic structure.



The museum’s approach to visual identity echoes that taken by Frank Pick in the early 20th century. This was a wonderful period in British Design where the talents of many exiles from Germany and experimental British designers were utilised by companies such as Shell, The Post Office and most notably London Transport. As Chief Executive of London Transport, Pick employed cutting-edge contemporary designers and allowed them to bring the London Transport brand to life with playful and persuasive creativity. Frank Pick’s strategy worked and led to the implementation of one of earliest examples of a clear and consistent corporate design policy that has survived for over a century and still inspires us today.


The Underground roundel is still one of the world’s most recognised brands and the famous schematic map of the London Underground designed by Harry Beck in 1933 has become the template for transport maps worldwide. Beck was an Underground employee who realised that, because the railway ran mostly underground, the physical locations of the stations weren’t relevant to the traveller wanting to know how to get to one station from another — only the topology of the railway mattered. Indeed the design has become so widely known that it is now instantly recognisable as representing London. It has been featured on T-shirts, postcards, and other memorabilia. In 2006 the design came second in a televised search for the most well known British Design Icon. It widely cited by academics and designers as a 'design classic' and it is due to these cultural associations that London Underground does not usually permit the design to be used or altered for any other purpose. Indeed such was the Underground’s obsession with customer centred design they developed their own “machine typeface” – New Johnston, to make their literature, maps and signage clearer.

It is appropriate then that the entrance to the reopened museum is a ramp featuring metro maps from around the world demonstrating that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Video screens embedded inside these maps contain (from Facebook and Flickr) videos of metro systems worldwide shot by users from these countries. At the end you take a lift to the top floor and a journey back in time. In the lift a one-line electronic display of dates comes to rest at 1800 and horses neigh over the sound system as you disembark onto a floor devoted to the transport of that era: including the 1829 omnibus and the horse-drawn tram. You then travel down through the Museum and the ages to the present. New galleries feature original artworks and advertising posters, and explore the extraordinary design heritage of London’s transport system, as well as London transport at war and the expansion of the capital through the development of the London Underground. This is a clever thematic treatment which works well for all ages – the entrance ramp creates visual anticipation and this is maintained throughout the visit by glimpses of the displays on the lower floors which include trains, trams, trolleys and buses from all eras. What is it about these which brings out the kid in all ages?



Actors mingle with the visitors, playing roles such as the capital’s first female bus driver. Among the gleaming metal vehicles there are smaller displays featuring poignant personal stories of some of London’s transport workers, like that of John Cunningham, a bus-station worker who bravely stood on the roof of his depot during the Blitz to sound the bomb alarm only to be blown to pieces in a direct hit. The revamped museum contains a third more exhibits than before, including a regularly changing collection of Underground posters, a whole new floor and an underground 120 seat theatre which resulted which resulted in the discovery during building work of 7th century skeletons in the basement, the legacy of a Saxon trading site.

The new museum is brighter than before and allows the atmospheric architecture of the Floral Hall to shine through. It also sets the standard in terms of step free access, disabled toilets and easy circulation throughout for mobility impaired visitors. A pity therefore that these credentials are not reinforced by high visibility tactile signage and clear offers of assistance at entrance points. The public toilet layout is strange as you pass by 5 identical doors before realising the last one leads to the ladies and gents. As these are separate the circulation is wasteful, far better to have adopted the continental unisex layout where they both lead onto a common entrance and washing area. Inside the best which can be said is they reflect the ambience of their counterparts on Underground stations – they are a lost opportunity. The signage to the toilets doesn’t impress and the directional signage in the museum is not too obvious either – no doubt these are teething issues on reopening which will be addressed.



At the end of the tour you exit into a stylish contemporary shop selling an excellent range of designer gifts, books, toys and even furniture upholstered in London Transport moquette – definitely antiques of the future! Upstairs there is the “Collectors Corner” for the hairy’s which has a wonderful stock of the famous Underground posters as well as books, DVD’s, models and memorabilia, many of which won’t be found elsewhere. The best buy is the beautifully produced Souvenir Guide at £5.00 which charts many aspects of London’s transport and its design icons. The only criticism is a publication of this quality should have an index. Also on this level you will find the Upper Deck Cafe and Bar. Run by Searcy’s, who also do catering at the Royal Opera and Buckingham Palace garden parties, this does rather tasty snacks, soups and meals and you could do far worse for a refuelling stop in this area. In the evening the ambience is softer and it turns into an attractive bar, a have from the hustle and bustle outside.

The refurbished museum hits all the right buttons providing a fascinating and interactive attraction for the kids and a fascinating insight into how transport solutions responded to and made possible the phenomenon which is the great world City of London. As Sam Mullins the Director observes in his introduction to the guide: “Transport is what drives cities worldwide. As London grew to be a world city, its citizens moved from walking to using a complex mix of transport modes: rail, taxi, bus, boat, tram, cycle.”

The story of the development of London and its transport system’s is a fascinating tale. Here, at London’s Transport Museum, it is a story well told to be enjoyed by the enthusiast and casual visitor alike. It is good to see this fascinating Transport Museum which tells the story of London so eloquently returned to service.


The Transport Museum in Covent Garden Piazza