Archinect - News

A new map offers a unique historical exploration of Berlin's eclectic subway architecture

2021-10-05T14:47:00-04:00

Blue Crow Media’s latest update to a series of influential design maps uses 50 select sites along the U-Bahn, Berlin’s invisible lifeline, as a means of looking into the social and economic impacts of architecture in 20th-century Berlin.

Courtesy Blue Crow Media

Featuring photography from Nigel Green, architectural historian Verena Pfeiffer-Kloss’s two-sided, bilingual guide offers a lurid investigation into significant design elements of the network using examples from 1902 to 2009.

Courtesy Blue Crow Media

More than half of the current system was designed by Swedish architect Alfred Grenander before his death in 1931. His Art Noveau inspiration gave way to modernism in the years that followed.

Stations by Rainer Gerhard Rümmler served as an integral part of post-war Berlin’s unique and often eclectic mix of architecture.

The map celebrates their and other contributions while encouraging readers to observe the deta...

Philadelphia's planned SEPTA wayfinding redesign is gaining traction online

2021-09-18T09:00:00-04:00

So far, Philly’s proposed wayfinding makeover has won praise from transit advocates around the country. The proposal draws from international best practices for transit navigability, and reflects similar changes in Seattle and San Francisco as big cities grapple with how to lure riders back to mass transportation.

Philadelphia's transit system is the country’s seventh-largest and is often the subject of criticism over its wayfinding and disorienting layout. The $40 million redesign is going to be rolled out gradually and will be fully unveiled sometime in 2022.

A planned four-mile addition to the King of Prussia rail line is also coming thanks to unused federal COVID funding. SEPTA says the extension is one of five projects that will boost economic recovery in the area by 50%.

Bloomberg CityLab has more on the initial reception here.

Influential New York City subway map designer Michael Hertz has died

2020-02-26T14:42:00-05:00

Michael Hertz, whose design firm produced one of the most consulted maps in human history, the curvy-lined chart that New York City subway riders peer at over one another’s shoulders to figure out which stop they want, died on Feb. 18 in East Meadow, N.Y. He was 87.

In an effort to boost ridership, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, North America's largest public transportation network, formed a committee under the leadership of John Tauranac in the mid-1970s to create a new, more appealing map for the New York City subway system and replace the iconic, Massimo Vignelli-designed — yet impractical and not universally loved — map in service at the time.

Michael Hertz Associates provided a new design, featuring more geographically correct lines, which was ultimately published in June 1979 in time for the subway's 75-year anniversary. It has remained the basis for all subsequent maps issued until today.

New York City Subway Map from July 2019. Courtesy of Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York.

"The map that Mr. Hertz’s firm came up with included streets, neighborhoods and other surface reference points," writes Neil Genzlinger for the NYT. "And it depicted the city and its signature elements like Central Park and th...

Putting one of America's most notorious prisons on the map

2016-04-13T12:34:00-04:00

Rikers Island looms large in New York’s imagination. It is home to a notorious complex of prisons, one whose excesses are still being discovered by the media and the courts. Many would like to see the Rikers Island closed forever, or barring that, to at least change the name to something that does not honor a slaveowner. One group of designers has a different goal for Rikers Island—one that is within reach and, in fact, already at hand.

"The problem: On the most prominent map of New York City, Rikers Island is a nonentity. The island simply isn’t labeled on Metropolitan Transportation Authority maps inside the New York subway. The solution: Label it. On every map."

For more on the #SeeRikers campaign – or to create your own stickers with their template – visit their site.

And check out these links for related content:

The long-lost design bible of the New York subway is (briefly) back in print

2014-09-10T15:37:00-04:00

To many designers, the manual became an exemplar of the form—and a design classic in its own right. [...] When Hamish Smyth and Jesse Reed, who work at the New York design firm Pentagram, stumbled across a copy a few years ago, it was buried under old gym clothes in a locker. They digitized the manual, and now they’re reprinting it with the blessing of the MTA. A complete reissue, which includes a new essay on the manual’s history, is being sold on Kickstarter starting today [...].