Just as actress Maureen Lipman quipped in the iconic 1980s BT advert: “You got an ology, you’re a scientist!”, so Designology at the London Transport Museum aims to reveal the sophistication that underlies the unassuming but effective designs of London Transport, rebranded Transport for London (TfL) in 2000.
The idea is that lurking underneath the comfortable familiarity of an underground roundel, among other things, are a series of design processes that shape the way Londoners interact with the city.
Two major strands run through the exhibition. The first is a kind of greatest hits – the Tottenham Court Road mosaics by Eduardo Paolozzi, the Design Research Unit’s contribution of patterned tiles to Victoria Line stations and fashion designer Wayne Hemingway’s 2015 TfL uniform redesign. The second strand comprises a number of distinct case studies from contemporary additions to the transport network, such as Crossrail.
The first gallery walks you through the designed environment as a whole – from traditional transport posters, bus destination signs and tickets, to miniature model trains, tube and bus passenger grab handles, seats, cycle stations, river bus piers for the river Thames and station platforms. The gallery presents a jumble of images, artefacts and reproductions culled from more than 150 years of history. Application rather than chronology provides the organising principle in this exhibition space.
One initial pleasure of the exhibition is nostalgia – navigating the thicket of ticket machines is like wandering onto a set of props stolen from a mid-century science-fiction show. You half expect Doctor Who actors Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker to jump out at you. The ticket prices are a steal and an agreeably prim public information film explains that the underground understands that “people come in all shape and sizes”, although the early automated barriers look formidable. They might have been built to prevent riots.
Counterbalancing this traditional approach to display is a more interactive aspect to the show. Near the start of the exhibition is a wall with #PimpMyBusStop written on it, where visitors can decorate an outline of a bus stop. It’s a popular feature, as adults and children stop, stare and participate. It is also a bright and breezy corrective to what is otherwise quite a serious exhibition.
Design through the ages
The theme of design education is developed further in the second gallery, which has a space for design masterclasses, debates and workshops. These encompass everything from producing posters to digitally integrating local information into bus shelters.
The case studies in the second gallery encompass Eiicho Kono’s New Johnston type designed for TfL, how the Legible London wayfinding signage was created, the redesign of Tottenham Court Road tube station and the production of new moquette fabric for tube trains. The research, design and testing processes for the Legible London maps are particularly fascinating; they explain how lessons drawn from cognitive science have made London a more walkable city.
While the second gallery is more focused on specific design developments it strangely lacks overlapping context – the abundant strength of the first gallery – which makes it less satisfying. Whereas the first gallery is an object-rich experience, the presentation
here is more didactic, and visitor responses will depend on how much time and patience they have to stand and watch videos.
Where Designology can be a little disappointing is in its mealy-mouthed attitude to discussing the continuing effect of TfL’s expansion of the contemporary urban environment. On occasions it degenerates into buzzwords – design is “encountered” in “threshold spaces”, “passenger experiences” and “travel environments”. It’s unsettling to see this kind of language – opaque corporate shorthand – in a museum context and it lends a degree of disingenuousness to the exhibition.
Commercial interests
The role of contemporary design in mediating different, sometimes competing, priorities is finally, if indirectly, touched on in the second gallery. In the video about Acanthus Architects’ designs for Tottenham Court Road station, it is revealed how the initial aesthetic ambitions were scaled back to accommodate more commercial shopping units.
It’s unfortunate that the first point in the exhibition where the role of values is raised is in the context not just of economics, but in the unquestioned primacy of maximising revenue. This lack of generosity is visible elsewhere. A label on a cabinet of train models reads: “Models can be purchased from the London Transport Museum shop” – as if it were possible to leave the museum without walking through its enormous gift shop.
Designology is at its weakest when it shows you a world where everything is seemingly designed for the best for everyone. The Emirates cable car has only been given a passing reference here and one can’t help but wonder if there was a reluctance not to do anything that might provoke the exhibition’s funders.
Contention and disagreement barely exist. At it’s worst, the exhibition reminded me of the recent Lego movie: “Everything. Is. Awesome.” It’s worth contrasting the reluctance in the second gallery to expand on what TfL’s designs for the 21st century might entail for the city as a whole, with the approach taken by Frank Pick, who established the underground’s reputation for design excellence in the inter-war years.
Pick was motivated by a moral commitment to create not just a modern city, but a more harmonious civilisation. He was ridiculed for this but that did not stop him discussing it. It seems unlikely he thought of TfL’s contribution in terms of threshold spaces.
Designology tips its hat to Pick and finds a place for Christian Barman, one of his acolytes, but regrettably does not follow their example of openly and accessibly communicating their aims and ideals. A fascinating final wall of unused or discarded designs only serves to remind you of how cold and closed off so much of the second gallery is.
By all but divorcing the practice of design from both the commissioning process and its larger impacts on the city and its citizens, Designology risks talking less about how London has been shaped than how London is decorated.
This is still a fine story and well worth celebrating, but Designology seems a grand title for it, especially when the legacy, achievements and ongoing influence of TfL’s investments seem of even greater significance. If nothing else it’s surely a subject one of the excellent masterclasses might address.
Scott Anthony is a journalist and fellow in public history at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Main funders Exterion; Bombardier; Atkins; Costain; Cubic; BAE Systems
Exhibition design Easy Tiger Creative
Display mounts Richard Rogers
Lighting Lux Lucis
Conservation Clare Reynolds; Stephen Umpleby
Admission £17 adults, children free
Exhibition ends Runs for at least 18 months from May 2016
The idea is that lurking underneath the comfortable familiarity of an underground roundel, among other things, are a series of design processes that shape the way Londoners interact with the city.
Two major strands run through the exhibition. The first is a kind of greatest hits – the Tottenham Court Road mosaics by Eduardo Paolozzi, the Design Research Unit’s contribution of patterned tiles to Victoria Line stations and fashion designer Wayne Hemingway’s 2015 TfL uniform redesign. The second strand comprises a number of distinct case studies from contemporary additions to the transport network, such as Crossrail.
The first gallery walks you through the designed environment as a whole – from traditional transport posters, bus destination signs and tickets, to miniature model trains, tube and bus passenger grab handles, seats, cycle stations, river bus piers for the river Thames and station platforms. The gallery presents a jumble of images, artefacts and reproductions culled from more than 150 years of history. Application rather than chronology provides the organising principle in this exhibition space.
One initial pleasure of the exhibition is nostalgia – navigating the thicket of ticket machines is like wandering onto a set of props stolen from a mid-century science-fiction show. You half expect Doctor Who actors Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker to jump out at you. The ticket prices are a steal and an agreeably prim public information film explains that the underground understands that “people come in all shape and sizes”, although the early automated barriers look formidable. They might have been built to prevent riots.
Counterbalancing this traditional approach to display is a more interactive aspect to the show. Near the start of the exhibition is a wall with #PimpMyBusStop written on it, where visitors can decorate an outline of a bus stop. It’s a popular feature, as adults and children stop, stare and participate. It is also a bright and breezy corrective to what is otherwise quite a serious exhibition.
Design through the ages
The theme of design education is developed further in the second gallery, which has a space for design masterclasses, debates and workshops. These encompass everything from producing posters to digitally integrating local information into bus shelters.
The case studies in the second gallery encompass Eiicho Kono’s New Johnston type designed for TfL, how the Legible London wayfinding signage was created, the redesign of Tottenham Court Road tube station and the production of new moquette fabric for tube trains. The research, design and testing processes for the Legible London maps are particularly fascinating; they explain how lessons drawn from cognitive science have made London a more walkable city.
While the second gallery is more focused on specific design developments it strangely lacks overlapping context – the abundant strength of the first gallery – which makes it less satisfying. Whereas the first gallery is an object-rich experience, the presentation
here is more didactic, and visitor responses will depend on how much time and patience they have to stand and watch videos.
Where Designology can be a little disappointing is in its mealy-mouthed attitude to discussing the continuing effect of TfL’s expansion of the contemporary urban environment. On occasions it degenerates into buzzwords – design is “encountered” in “threshold spaces”, “passenger experiences” and “travel environments”. It’s unsettling to see this kind of language – opaque corporate shorthand – in a museum context and it lends a degree of disingenuousness to the exhibition.
Commercial interests
The role of contemporary design in mediating different, sometimes competing, priorities is finally, if indirectly, touched on in the second gallery. In the video about Acanthus Architects’ designs for Tottenham Court Road station, it is revealed how the initial aesthetic ambitions were scaled back to accommodate more commercial shopping units.
It’s unfortunate that the first point in the exhibition where the role of values is raised is in the context not just of economics, but in the unquestioned primacy of maximising revenue. This lack of generosity is visible elsewhere. A label on a cabinet of train models reads: “Models can be purchased from the London Transport Museum shop” – as if it were possible to leave the museum without walking through its enormous gift shop.
Designology is at its weakest when it shows you a world where everything is seemingly designed for the best for everyone. The Emirates cable car has only been given a passing reference here and one can’t help but wonder if there was a reluctance not to do anything that might provoke the exhibition’s funders.
Contention and disagreement barely exist. At it’s worst, the exhibition reminded me of the recent Lego movie: “Everything. Is. Awesome.” It’s worth contrasting the reluctance in the second gallery to expand on what TfL’s designs for the 21st century might entail for the city as a whole, with the approach taken by Frank Pick, who established the underground’s reputation for design excellence in the inter-war years.
Pick was motivated by a moral commitment to create not just a modern city, but a more harmonious civilisation. He was ridiculed for this but that did not stop him discussing it. It seems unlikely he thought of TfL’s contribution in terms of threshold spaces.
Designology tips its hat to Pick and finds a place for Christian Barman, one of his acolytes, but regrettably does not follow their example of openly and accessibly communicating their aims and ideals. A fascinating final wall of unused or discarded designs only serves to remind you of how cold and closed off so much of the second gallery is.
By all but divorcing the practice of design from both the commissioning process and its larger impacts on the city and its citizens, Designology risks talking less about how London has been shaped than how London is decorated.
This is still a fine story and well worth celebrating, but Designology seems a grand title for it, especially when the legacy, achievements and ongoing influence of TfL’s investments seem of even greater significance. If nothing else it’s surely a subject one of the excellent masterclasses might address.
Scott Anthony is a journalist and fellow in public history at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Project data
Cost £368,000Main funders Exterion; Bombardier; Atkins; Costain; Cubic; BAE Systems
Exhibition design Easy Tiger Creative
Display mounts Richard Rogers
Lighting Lux Lucis
Conservation Clare Reynolds; Stephen Umpleby
Admission £17 adults, children free
Exhibition ends Runs for at least 18 months from May 2016
