All,
I hate to pour cold water on Terry's delightful obsession with sewage systems re the London Underground Diagram (LUD) but on the principal of available simplicity and designing with what resources there are to hand, the usual (and persausive) metaphor for the LUD are electrical circuit diagrams (flows, resistances) and this for the very good reason that Henry Beck was both before his invention of the LUD and after it employed as a draughtsman by the LPTB working amongst other things on electrical circuits. It remains conjecture of course as to precisely what inspired Beck but looking carefully at (some) of the resources that he might have drawn on c.1930-1931 when he began to conceive "tidying up" Singmore's current "vermicelli" map, were (i) the evident exhaustion of the existing paradigm of "map"; (ii) the relative impossibility, of making a new map utilizing current graphic and mapping conventions; (iii) the increasing fascination with diagrams in general across the 1920s including, e.g. increasing numbers of representations of the underground system as indeed "underground"; (iv) (perhaps) a sense of other parallel attempts to map or make diagrams of complex systems; (v) Beck's own experience as a daily traveller on the Underground ("what does the traveller need?); (vii) his awareness of the modernizing impetus within LPTB (posters, signage, stations, rolling-stock, infrastructure as a whole) (vi) the graphic resources and experience he had to hand--e.g. his experience as an electrical draughtsman.
It is when one maps (or begins to map--this list is doubtless insufficient) one sees two things: (i) the over-determination of possible "causes" that led to the LUD; (ii) the absolutely contingent fact of Beck's actual (re-)invention of the map as diagram. In other words, the innovation is a) (retrospectively) massively predictable; b) equally highly unlikely. It is, in other words, an improbable event; the invention of a new genre.
All of this is also dependent on another factor, which is the willingness of the LPTB to experiment with Beck's concept. Rejected in 1931 it was not until the winter 1932 that the LPTB publicity dept. finally (reluctantly) agreed to a trial printing of 500 copies as a leaflet. The instant and absolute success of this trial convinced them to launch the diagram as both leaflet (initial printing of 750,000 as I recall) and Poster. The rest, as they say, is history.
Two things are interesting today to ask about this diagram: what, precisely (and non reductively) is the source of its astonishing popularity? And what are, if any, the implicit politics and ethics of the LUD--in other words can an abstract" configuration like the LUD "possess" (exemplify) a politics?
NB. Anyone wanting to follow these issues further should look at three magnificent texts on the LUD and its context:
Nikolaus Pevsner's essay on Frank Pick and the LPTB (published in the second volume of P's collected lectures and essays, Studies in Art, Architecture and Design, Vol 2 Victorian and After); John A Walker's marvelous little semantic analysis of the diagram (from Icographic journal c.1981 as I recall) and Ken Garland's short but detailed book on the history of the diagram.
Best
Clive
Clive Dilnot
Professor of Design Studies
School of Art Design History and Theory
Parsons School of Design,
New School University.
Room #731
2 E 16th St
New York NY 10011
e [log in to unmask]
T.1-212-229-8916 x1481
>>> "Filippo A. Salustri" <[log in to unmask]> 08/23/10 9:00 PM >>>
For what it's worth, I recall looking closely at the London underground map
for the first time and thinking immediately how it looked like a piping
layout. Kind of makes sense - tubes, pipes, it's all a bit the same....
About the cartograms - they're good for spotting overall trends only, or
coarse comparisons. That's how I've thought of them anyways.
Cheers.
Fil
On 20 August 2010 22:39, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> For those interested in a sewage map of London please see
> http://www.sewerhistory.org/images/bm/bmm3/1930_bmm315.jpg
>
> The two main map making conventions that transform this kind of map into
> Beck's underground map are:
>
> 1) Convert lines to 90 or 45 degrees
>
> 2) Locate items of interest approx equidistant
>
> The lack of good sewage maps online of this era in London suggests the
> connection with the underground may be an urban myth. There is a more
> obvious connection visually with engineering drawings of drainage systems
> in
> which major items are drawn topologically correct, arranged in an
> approximately sensible relationship and the pipe lengths between them are
> shortened to suit the drawing.
>
> In contrast to the topological map, the cartogram appears to be potentially
> useful in representing information well, See for example
> www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/publications/2006/dorling_new_
> <http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/publications/2006/dorling_new_maps.pdf>
> maps.pdf
>
> Seems a bit difficult to do easy comparisons of different items using the
> cartogram. Anyone else feel the same?
>
> Sewage technology has had a long and hidden history of input into design
> across a wide variety of design fields. For example, you can guess that
> there was considerable user (lead user!) input and collaborative design of
> this 'flusher's' uniform and equipment
> http://www.sewerhistory.org/images/cm/cmjs/1950_cmjs01.jpg
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Terry
>
--
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
|