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London Tube map exhibition commemorates iconic style

London's Tube map is being celebrated in a new exhibit that traces the development of its muchloved design that has actually motivated transportation network guides around the globe.

Displayed at London Underground stations, in trains and on passenger brochures, television map has actually remained a popular method to plan journeys around the capital even in the age of smart devices.

In a 2006 BBC survey Britons voted the Tube map their second favourite British style of the 20th century after the Concorde jet, and beating the Spitfire fighter airplane, the World Wide Web and the red telephone box.

Starting on Friday, the Mapping television: 1863-2023 exhibit at The Map Home, in London, will show and sell rare Tube maps and posters, including a manuscript of Harry Beck's 1933 variation, which has a cost of 75,000 pounds ($ 96,900).

Beck's design changed how transportation networks were imagined worldwide, transforming a diagram of squiggly lines overlaid on geographical maps into straight lines that enabled passengers to figure out quickly how to obtain from station to station.

His principle was that when a guest was underground, it didn't matter to them where they were above ground, as long as they ended up at the station they were attempting to get to, exhibition manager Charles Robert said.

His design is continued and copied and established by practically every other transport network worldwide, he said. His. impact is as wide-ranging as any other designer of the 20th. century.

However, deeming it too radical, the capital's transportation. authorities declined Beck's no-nonsense style at first, just. embracing it after a hit trial run.

The technical draughtsman was barely acknowledged during his. own lifetime, although Tube maps today do credit his style.

The exhibition - which coincides with the 50th anniversary. of Beck's death - runs until Nov. 30.

(source: Reuters)