London Underground Map Myths

Why do we need a myths page?

Click on the myths below to see them debunked or at least questioned

• The diagrammatic London Underground map was originated by Harry Beck FALSE

• The diagrammatic London Underground map was inspired by electrical circuit diagrams FALSE

• Henry Beck was the first designer to show an entire network using diagrammatic principles FALSE

• The diagrammatic map was invented in Britain, and these design principles spread from here to the rest of the world FALSE

• Henry Beck was the only designer of Underground maps for London Transport from 1933 to 1960 FALSE

• All of Henry Beck's maps can be regarded as outstanding pieces of graphic design FALSE

• The London Underground Map can be a design icon FALSE

• Henry Beck invented colour-coding/Henry Beck himself chose the colours on the Underground map FALSE/NOT PROVEN

• Every single tiny revision to Underground maps bearing Beck's name was the deliberate work of Beck himself.
  Those changes not strictly necessary reflect an obsessive attention to detail NOT PROVEN/NOT PROVEN

• Henry Beck devised an outstanding diagrammatic map of Paris.
  It was rejected by reactionary French officials DEBATABLE/DEBATABLE

• Henry Beck's rules constitute a mapping 'gold standard' so that using these rules will always result in a reasonable design FALSE

• A diagrammatic London Underground map can and should be correct in all geographical and technical details FALSE

Name and shame

BUT

Some of us are in, or take, positions of authority. When doing this, we have a duty to ensure that our statements are as best-researched as possible and, more importantly if we make a mistake, we should correct ourselves at the earliest opportunity. Below you will find links to web pages which perpetrate London Underground map myths, in which the organisations have been informed, but no corrections have been made.

Why is there so much of this sort of thing about these days? I guess that too many people in the media and museums have fallen for the old relativism chestnut, that there is no such thing as 'facts', only 'opinions', and that all opinions are equally valid. Actually, if this were really so, that previous sentence would not be factual either, so it is impossible to assert the validity of relativism as a perspective, it is inherently self-contradictory. The real problem with relativism is that it encourages laziness amongst disciplines that used to know better. The task of a museum curator or a journalist becomes infinitely easier if there are no facts, because there is no need to research them to see whether they are correct or not. Just print an opinion instead, who cares, it's just as valid as everything else. Well, some of us do care, and the following are just not good enough:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4794122.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4769060.stm

The BBC web pages keep perpetrating Underground map myths, and every time they do, myself and colleagues have emailed them to tell them so. Thus far, we have not even received a reply. Shame on you BBC.

Actually, the BBC web pages seem to have a bit of a blindspot where the Underground is concerned. Not map related, but spot the mistake in the following article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2006/11/20/wood_lane_tube_feature.shtml

Maybe we can excuse the BBC web pages if the compilers got their information from the Design Museum (who have at least acknowledged our emails, even though they have not acted on them), or maybe the Design Museum got their information from the BBC web pages. Note how all of these use similar wording: "based on an electrical circuit". This leads to the obvious question, "which exact electrical circuit do you think Beck was inspired by"?

http://www.designmuseum.org/designinbritain/london-transport

But it gets worse, the V&A think that Beck was inspired by Sewer maps:

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1331_modernism/highlights_19.html