.Urban Transportation

Pop Art
put to the test

Although this model was effective in simplifying the representation of a complex city like London, it was not necessarily applicable elsewhere. The renowned Italian designer Massimo Vignelli came up against its limits when he proposed a Pop Art version of the New York Subway map in 1972. His color coding scheme would continue to be used but the map itself was a resounding failure: the inhabitants of the Big Apple successfully demanded a return to a geographic representation of the city. The New York Subway map in use today, like that of the Paris Metro, also serves as a city map!

With the development of virtual media devices (mobile phones, Smartphones, etc.) which integrate data in real time, the debate is becoming less important.