Vignelli – The Map Room

Geographical on the NYC Subway Map Debate

Published on 13 July 202313 July 2023 by Jonathan Crowe

Geographical magazine has a short history of the New York City subway map and its controversies. This has been a fraught and hotly contested topic for most of the last 50 years, and Jules Stewart’s article can’t go into nearly enough depth to capture it all, but it could serve as a decent entry point for those not in the know. Drawing rather heavily on the expertise of Peter Lloyd (previously), Stewart covers the subject from the first subway maps to where the MTA goes from here.

Previously: A Naïve Look at New York’s Subway Map.

More on the New York Subway Map Debate

Published on 9 December 2021 by Jonathan Crowe

This roundtable discussion about The New York Subway Map Debate, a book about the April 1978 Cooper Union debate over the design of the New York subway map (previously) and related subjects, featuring John Tauranac himself (who participated in the 1978 debate), alerted me to the fact that an audio recording of that debate is available online. (A discussion about a book about a debate: this all feels a bit recursive.) [Kenneth Field]

The New York Subway Map Debate

Published on 13 October 2021 by Jonathan Crowe

Back in 1978, Massimo Vignelli and John Tauranac debated the future of New York’s subway map. That debate—which in many ways never quite ended—is now the subject of a book coming out later this month. Edited by Gary Hustwit, The New York Subway Map Debate includes a full transcript of the debate and subsequent discussion (thanks to the discovery of a lost audio recording), plus contemporary photos and new interviews. Paperback available for $40 via the link.

Vignelli in D.C.

Published on 30 May 2018 by Jonathan Crowe

In the 1970s, Vignelli Associates—Massimo and Lella Vignelli—made a bid to design the maps for the Washington Metro. That gig went to Lance Wyman. The Vignelli Archives recently unearthed some presentation boards and design sketches from their bid; CityLab has more details. Cameron Booth notes that these are hardly new discoveries, as they’d appeared recently in Peter Lloyd and Mark Ovenden’s Vignelli Transit Maps, which came out in 2012.

Booth has recreated a digital version of one of Vignelli’s map sketches—a hexagonal grid concept that appeared in Vignelli Transit Maps—as well as a full, modern system diagram in the same style; he’s selling the latter as a poster.