Topological London

In 1931, Henry Charles Beck’s map of the London Underground revolutionised urban transport by offering passengers the ability to visualise their journey as a series of interconnected transfer points rather than a tangle of separately operated railway lines, which it was in actual fact. Beck aimed with his representation to simplify the task of charting one’s route through unfamiliar terrain, and he did this by straightening out paths along horizontal, vertical, or diagonal lines, adding tick marks to denote stations and diamonds to symbolise interchanges (see Figure 8). By systematising the graphic design and jettisoning dependence on cartographic accuracy, Beck invented a new language for urban mobility that was rapidly copied by other cities around the world.