Transit aficionados have long been enamored with the various redesigns, reformats and debates around improving our subway maps—whether they're

The Secret History Of The Great Subway Map Debate Of 1978 Revealed

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2021-06-22 01:00:21

Transit aficionados have long been enamored with the various redesigns, reformats and debates around improving our subway maps—whether they're geographically-oriented, smooth, colorful, or historical artifacts. But real MTA heads know that one of the most pivotal moments in subway map history happened in the Great Hall of Cooper Union in April 1978, when acclaimed designer Massimo Vignelli debated the future of the map with cartographer John Tauranac.

The debate, which was both an intellectual exercise and attempt to get feedback from the public about map designs, centered around the tension between information and communication. Ultimately, Vignelli's map was pushed aside and the Tauranac map, variations of which are still used to this day, was adopted.

That seminal debate is now the subject of a new book—The New York Subway Map Debate—after design historian and Helvetica filmmaker Gary Hustwit discovered that archivists at the Cooper Union had recently found an audio recording of the debate in the basement. Aside from a couple quotes in The New Yorker and in the NY Times at the time of the debate, nobody really knew what had been said that evening until this audio was recently unearthed.