it’s reacting to the actual conditions in the subway - you can see the trains moving, etc. Gary hustwit (GH): last summer, I was making a short documentary called ‘the map’, which followed work & co’s process of designing the new live subway map. To learn more about the evening surrounding this epic design dispute and the events that led to the publication of the new york subway map debate, designboom spoke with gary hustwit…ĭesignboom (DB): what led to the discovery of this lost audio recording, and how did its finding develop into the publication of the new york subway map debate? Image from the national archives at college park, public domain, via wikimedia commons ‘I just love the idea of publishing a whole book about a two hour conversation that happened 43 years ago,’ hustwit tells designboom.Ī woman looks at a route map of the new york city transit authority subway system in 1974 these exceptional images and the audio transcript from the event has now been edited into a 140-page publication, edited by hustwit, and aptly titled, the new york subway map debate. in his research, hustwit also unearthed unpublished footage by a photographer named stan ries who had been there that night and captured the scene in its controversial and creative glory. It was a ‘wonderful coincidence’ then, when filmmaker and design historian gary hustwit got his hands on the lost two-hour long audio recording of the event, which captured this pivotal moment in design history.

architects, designers, city officials, and ordinary new yorkers attended the debate and weighed in with their considerations and concerns about the future of the new york city subway map in a lively conversation thought to be lost to history. the crux of the now-legendary dispute centered around a battle between the minimalist, graphically-gratifying 1972 map by creative force massimo vignelli, and the more contextual, geographically-accurate map proposed by cartographer john tauranac.

Looking at a new york city subway map today might not necessarily conjure up visions of a highly contentious and controversial design debate - but in 1978, that’s exactly what went down one april evening at the cooper union.

New york subway map