Going Underground: A Culture Show Special The Culture Show


Going Underground: A Culture Show Special

Similar Content

Browse content similar to Going Underground: A Culture Show Special. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!

Transcript


LineFromTo

'They say there's a rule about invitations -

0:00:030:00:05

'the stiffer the card, the bigger the deal.

0:00:050:00:09

'This one's from Art On The Underground,

0:00:090:00:11

'and it's pretty damn stiff.

0:00:110:00:13

'A press conference to announce details of a major

0:00:130:00:16

'international art commission for all 270 stations of the Underground.

0:00:160:00:22

'But they haven't told us the name of the artist.

0:00:220:00:26

'This might seem an unusual way to celebrate

0:00:260:00:29

'the 150th anniversary of the London Underground,

0:00:290:00:32

'but art, architecture, design and even the arts of persuasion

0:00:320:00:36

'and propaganda have played a bigger role in the story of the Tube

0:00:360:00:39

'than many people realise.

0:00:390:00:41

'When Art On The Underground finally revealed that Turner Prize winner

0:00:430:00:46

'Mark Wallinger has produced a piece called Labyrinth for this occasion,

0:00:460:00:50

'it seemed absolutely fitting.

0:00:500:00:52

'Art belongs here on the platform

0:00:540:00:57

'just as much as it does in the boardroom,

0:00:570:00:59

because of a tradition of patronage unique to the network.'

0:00:590:01:02

I suspect you may not recognise this man, but he was a visionary,

0:01:050:01:11

and together with the chap on the wall over there,

0:01:110:01:14

cos these two were said to work together

0:01:140:01:16

like the blades on a pair of scissors,

0:01:160:01:18

he ran a transport network that shaped the greatest city on Earth.

0:01:180:01:22

And he did so not just with feats of engineering, he did so with art.

0:01:220:01:26

These two did it with the poster, they did it with design,

0:01:260:01:30

they did it with the signage of the stations, logos,

0:01:300:01:33

even down to the typeface, the branding.

0:01:330:01:35

And they did so with such detail and diligence that they could

0:01:360:01:40

honestly compare the Underground system to an earthly paradise.

0:01:400:01:45

'In 1863, the world's first underground railway

0:01:540:01:58

'opened in London. It was the only one ever to use steam engines.

0:01:580:02:04

'The Metropolitan Railway

0:02:040:02:05

'ran between Paddington and Farringdon Road.

0:02:050:02:08

'This is Chancellor William Gladstone in a special VIP preview.

0:02:080:02:12

'Almost 40,000 passengers flocked to use it on the first day,

0:02:140:02:17

'and 150 years later,

0:02:170:02:19

'enthusiasts paid up to £180 each to recapture the romance of steam.

0:02:190:02:24

'But back in the Victorian era,

0:02:270:02:29

'when these shafts at Baker Street once vented the smoke and fumes

0:02:290:02:33

'to the streets above, many people saw it as an experience of Hell.'

0:02:330:02:37

Travelling on the Underground in the 19th century,

0:02:400:02:42

the era of smoke and steam, could be satanic and infernal.

0:02:420:02:46

There was an American journalist who in 1887 described it like this,

0:02:460:02:50

"I had my first experience of Hades today, and if the real thing

0:02:500:02:53

"is to be like that, I shall never again do anything wrong.

0:02:530:02:57

"The atmosphere was full of sulphur, coal dust and foul fumes from

0:02:570:03:01

"the oil lamp above, so that by the time we reached Moorgate,

0:03:010:03:04

"I was near dead of asphyxiation and heat."

0:03:040:03:07

'By the end of the century, a new form of power was taking over.

0:03:110:03:15

'This is the Metropolitan Line in 1910,

0:03:160:03:19

'in a film made to show off the new electric trains in action.

0:03:190:03:23

'The landscape around London would be transformed

0:03:230:03:26

'by the coming of the railway.

0:03:260:03:28

'This would become Metro-land.

0:03:280:03:30

'The Underground created the suburbs

0:03:320:03:34

'and became part of the rhythm of daily life.

0:03:340:03:37

'Generations of Londoners have now grown up with the sights

0:03:370:03:40

'and sounds of the railway, Mark Wallinger among them.'

0:03:400:03:43

This is very particular to my childhood.

0:03:440:03:47

I suppose I was brought up in Chigwell...

0:03:470:03:49

-So you grew up just over...?

-Yeah, a couple hundred yards away from here,

0:03:490:03:53

so you could say I'm a child of the Tube.

0:03:530:03:55

We used to come here to wait for the trains and wave at the driver...

0:03:550:03:59

-Did you?

-Yeah and try and get a wave back.

-Did you ever get a wave back?

0:03:590:04:02

Oh, yeah, quite often and that,

0:04:020:04:04

I don't know, as a child that made some connection with this thing

0:04:040:04:08

that was heading off into London.

0:04:080:04:10

'Mark Wallinger has a history with the Tube.

0:04:120:04:14

'There was the escalator at Angel...'

0:04:140:04:17

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was...

0:04:170:04:22

BACKWARDS GIBBERISH

0:04:220:04:24

'..and an experiment with the vanishing point,

0:04:240:04:27

'shot on the Circle Line.

0:04:270:04:29

'Then in 2010, this installation.'

0:04:290:04:31

I made a piece called The Unconscious, which was

0:04:310:04:34

large photographs, but sourced from the Net,

0:04:340:04:38

of people who'd had their photographs taken asleep

0:04:380:04:42

by other passengers, friends or whatever and posted, and...

0:04:420:04:46

yeah, I think there's something rather lovely

0:04:460:04:49

about how one feels safe and secure within this kind of institution.

0:04:490:04:53

I like transport and I like the idea of being transported as well.

0:04:530:04:58

We're living through a kind of tracking shot, if you like,

0:04:580:05:00

or you kind of lose yourself in different possibilities

0:05:000:05:04

of time and space, really,

0:05:040:05:06

from our normal pedestrian way of seeing things.

0:05:060:05:09

'The Tube lines went deeper at the end of the 19th century.

0:05:150:05:19

'For the Victorians it was a novelty,

0:05:190:05:21

'but what do modern writers make of the experience down the rabbit hole?

0:05:210:05:25

'It's a psychological journey too into the unconscious of the city.'

0:05:250:05:30

We are a bit reluctant to think about the fact that we're in a tunnel.

0:05:300:05:33

The deep tubes are only 11 feet across.

0:05:330:05:37

It's quite uncomfortable, that is not big, that's a narrow space

0:05:370:05:41

and the Underground bit of the Northern Line

0:05:410:05:43

is something like 17 miles long,

0:05:430:05:45

and you know, you don't necessarily want that in your head.

0:05:450:05:48

So I think we're in a curious sort of balance

0:05:480:05:51

between the metaphorical thing and actually

0:05:510:05:54

the slightly, "I'd prefer not to think about it" reality.

0:05:540:05:57

You have to almost distract yourself slightly.

0:05:570:06:00

You have to become very focused but also slightly distracted,

0:06:000:06:03

and you have to deal with people in a different way

0:06:030:06:05

because you're always with strangers,

0:06:050:06:07

and you're never going to speak to these strangers,

0:06:070:06:09

and you really are, if you think about it,

0:06:090:06:11

you're a long way under the ground and you're surrounded by dirt

0:06:110:06:14

and the earth that could collapse in on you...

0:06:140:06:16

it doesn't seem as dangerous as flying

0:06:160:06:18

but in a funny sort of way it kind of is, if not more,

0:06:180:06:20

because you are literally locked in a metal tube with strangers.

0:06:200:06:24

When this carriage first came into use

0:06:270:06:29

on the City and South London Railway,

0:06:290:06:30

it quickly earned a nickname as "The Padded Cell,"

0:06:300:06:34

and you get a sense why. It's very claustrophobic.

0:06:340:06:37

For the first time, people were travelling by Tube,

0:06:370:06:40

deep underground.

0:06:400:06:42

In fact, The Times described it as "Like being in a gigantic

0:06:420:06:46

"iron drainpipe thrust by main force through solid London clay, much as

0:06:460:06:51

"a cheesemonger might thrust a scoop into his cheddar or Gloucester."

0:06:510:06:55

'With absolutely no strategic planning, the tubes ploughed on.

0:06:560:07:01

'The Central London Railway, known as the Twopenny Tube,

0:07:010:07:05

'was a popular success, thanks in part to its clever advertising

0:07:050:07:09

'designed to assuage anxieties.'

0:07:090:07:11

It's like a step-by-step guide

0:07:120:07:15

about how to avoid all anxiety of using the Tube.

0:07:150:07:18

So it suggests that that was a great problem at the beginning, was it?

0:07:180:07:22

-The Tube had to change people's perceptions.

-Absolutely.

0:07:220:07:25

Some people were genuinely terrified of going underground because,

0:07:250:07:29

you know, you had to go in an electric lift and then travel

0:07:290:07:32

on an electric train and this is when people might not have had electricity

0:07:320:07:35

in their own homes and so all this new technology was quite

0:07:350:07:38

frightening, and also in the deep level tubes,

0:07:380:07:41

the carriages weren't divided by class,

0:07:410:07:43

so, you know, for a respectable, well-to-do lady, it might be

0:07:430:07:48

quite frightening, the idea of travelling underground unchaperoned.

0:07:480:07:51

It's a good point about the technology because actually,

0:07:510:07:54

in the middle, you've got this huge lift and it does say,

0:07:540:07:57

"Safe and commodious lifts," that's what it's advertising,

0:07:570:07:59

as opposed to your dangerous and cramped lifts.

0:07:590:08:02

But lifts were new technology,

0:08:020:08:03

had to persuade people to actually get in them.

0:08:030:08:06

'The best known labyrinth comes from a Greek myth.

0:08:110:08:14

'The hero, Theseus,

0:08:140:08:15

'had to venture into its dark tunnels to kill a monster,

0:08:150:08:18

'the Minotaur.

0:08:180:08:19

'He could only find his way back with the use of a thread.

0:08:190:08:23

'It's a long way from the Central Line.

0:08:230:08:26

'The Labyrinth is actually a simple journey which looks complicated.

0:08:260:08:30

'It's not to be confused with a maze,

0:08:300:08:32

'in which it's easy to lose your way.'

0:08:320:08:34

The thing about The Labyrinth is, erm,

0:08:360:08:39

there's only one route in and one route out,

0:08:390:08:44

which makes the story of Theseus and the Minotaur kind of intriguing

0:08:440:08:50

because clearly it was very hard to find your way out of that one.

0:08:500:08:54

'You can't get lost in a labyrinth.

0:08:560:08:59

'It's one path that always leads to the centre.

0:08:590:09:03

'Homer referred to it as "a single dancing path."

0:09:030:09:06

'But it might equally apply to your daily commute.'

0:09:070:09:11

'The tube lines were expensive to build and the only way to

0:09:190:09:22

'make them pay was to get more people to use them more often.

0:09:220:09:26

'This was the mission of Albert Stanley, later Lord Ashfield,

0:09:260:09:30

'and Frank Pick.

0:09:300:09:31

'The latter, a draper's son trained as a lawyer,

0:09:310:09:34

'fresh down to London from York, commissioned this poster.

0:09:340:09:38

'He was appalled by the lack of clear information

0:09:380:09:41

'available to strangers trying to find their way around the city.

0:09:410:09:44

'For the next 30 years, he tried to bring clarity

0:09:440:09:47

'and identity to the network.

0:09:470:09:49

'All the elements which make the Underground a globally

0:09:490:09:53

'recognisable brand were put in place on Pick's watch.

0:09:530:09:57

'The roundel had a clear purpose,

0:09:570:09:59

'to stand out in the alphabet soup of Edwardian platforms.

0:09:590:10:02

'And he commissioned calligrapher Edward Johnston to produce

0:10:040:10:07

'a new typeface that was both classical and indisputably modern.

0:10:070:10:12

'The whole notion of "underground" was in a state of flux.

0:10:160:10:21

'The generating station at Lots Road,

0:10:210:10:23

'known as the "Chelsea Monster,"

0:10:230:10:25

'which provided power to the network, was a symbol of the age.

0:10:250:10:28

'Anthony Asquith's film Underground

0:10:300:10:32

'staged a dramatic murder there at its climax.'

0:10:320:10:35

'HG Wells wrote a story called Lord of the Dynamo.

0:10:390:10:42

'In his science-fiction,

0:10:420:10:44

'he'd already imagined a number of sinister or alien underworlds.'

0:10:440:10:48

Wells is afraid of those kind of underworlds.

0:10:490:10:52

He's afraid of what they represent,

0:10:520:10:54

but around 1900, Wells begins to change his mind.

0:10:540:10:58

He writes in a book called Anticipations

0:10:580:11:01

about an underground that is completely the opposite.

0:11:010:11:04

It's one for the future, it's almost like an underground city

0:11:040:11:08

in which people will enjoy travelling on the Underground.

0:11:080:11:11

-It's a utopia.

-It's a utopian underground, very much so.

0:11:110:11:15

And in a sense, Frank Pick is the heir to that.

0:11:150:11:18

He wants, in his notion of fitness for purpose, he wants

0:11:180:11:22

the Underground to be the essential foundation for London, for the city.

0:11:220:11:27

So he wants all that Victorian inferno to be wiped away,

0:11:280:11:33

to be washed away and replaced with a dynamic, fast-moving,

0:11:330:11:36

uncluttered world with beautiful posters, uncluttered stations.

0:11:360:11:43

He wants order! Order from the chaos!

0:11:430:11:45

He wants order, regimentation. He wants control.

0:11:450:11:49

'Part of that control was training the passengers in the finer points

0:11:510:11:55

'of Tube etiquette, and by the time of Asquith's film,

0:11:550:11:59

'Londoners had mostly got the hang of it.

0:11:590:12:02

'Mostly.'

0:12:040:12:05

'Though he had no training in art himself,

0:12:090:12:11

'Frank Pick's most potent weapon in the battle for the hearts

0:12:110:12:14

'and minds of the travelling public was the poster.

0:12:140:12:18

'Once he'd drawn people into the system,

0:12:180:12:21

'he wanted them to come back for more.

0:12:210:12:23

'He did it by nudging, not nagging,

0:12:230:12:26

'gently pointing out the benefits of Underground travel,

0:12:260:12:29

'persuading people to take journeys they might not otherwise have taken,

0:12:290:12:32

'to the sales, to the boat race, to the countryside,

0:12:320:12:37

'not just to put bums on seats but to make them aware

0:12:370:12:40

'of everything the city had to offer.

0:12:400:12:42

'Some are humourous, some are beautiful, some were bold,

0:12:420:12:47

'enigmatic and challengingly modern

0:12:470:12:49

'to a nation not known for its visual sophistication.

0:12:490:12:52

'But that was OK - Pick was intent on building the most

0:12:520:12:55

'modern transport system in the world, and he built up

0:12:550:12:58

'its reputation by introducing the public to modern art.

0:12:580:13:02

'When he organised an exhibition of posters, Pick boasted,

0:13:060:13:10

"There is no catalogue.

0:13:100:13:11

"A good poster explains itself."

0:13:110:13:14

'The Tube system became the longest art gallery in the country.'

0:13:140:13:18

How would you describe his attitude towards art?

0:13:180:13:21

I like the quote where he says,

0:13:210:13:22

"Art has to come down off its pedestal and earn its living,"

0:13:220:13:26

and I think it's always as that consummate transport operator

0:13:260:13:32

that he thinks about art. It has to serve his purpose.

0:13:320:13:36

It's not just there to prettify things, it has to be

0:13:360:13:40

fit for that purpose, and the purpose is moving people about.

0:13:400:13:44

'Pick's enthusiasm for a modern style didn't end with posters.

0:13:470:13:52

'He commissioned the architect Charles Holden, a fellow believer in

0:13:520:13:56

'fitness for purpose, to design the stations

0:13:560:13:58

'for the Morden extension to the Northern Line.

0:13:580:14:01

'We take them for granted now,

0:14:010:14:03

'but they were greeted in the press as a new type of building

0:14:030:14:06

'which improves the face of London.'

0:14:060:14:09

'As usual, God, or Pick,

0:14:110:14:13

'is in the details.

0:14:130:14:16

'The famous logo has become three dimensional.

0:14:160:14:19

'And the white Portland stone facades

0:14:190:14:22

'were designed to show off posters.

0:14:220:14:24

'On the 10th of December 1928,

0:14:260:14:29

'a new Piccadilly Circus station was opened,

0:14:290:14:32

'with an Art Deco ticket hall and concourse by Charles Holden.

0:14:320:14:36

'It became one of the wonders of London.'

0:14:360:14:39

'Soviet engineers were sent to consult with London Underground

0:14:400:14:44

'and when the Moscow Metro was built a few years later,

0:14:440:14:47

'Frank Pick and his colleagues were awarded

0:14:470:14:49

'the honorary badge of the Moscow Soviet of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies.'

0:14:490:14:55

I'm getting a sense that he did seem to be driven by this desire to

0:14:570:15:01

bring modernism to the masses. Do you think that that's correct?

0:15:010:15:06

I think he had a view that the work that

0:15:060:15:10

the Underground Electric Railway of London and London Transport later did

0:15:100:15:14

was a significant part of civilising the city.

0:15:140:15:18

That comes out of that Arts and Crafts notion that

0:15:180:15:23

if things are well-designed, people will feel happier and more engaged with them.

0:15:230:15:27

'Perhaps the greatest achievement of the Frank Pick era is

0:15:290:15:32

'the headquarters, built in 1928.

0:15:320:15:36

'Designed by Holden on a cruciform plan,

0:15:360:15:39

'the Observer described it as "a cathedral of modernity".

0:15:390:15:43

'It had impeccable modern art credentials

0:15:430:15:45

'with statues by Eric Gill, Henry Moore and Jacob Epstein on the exterior.

0:15:450:15:50

'It's sited above St James's Park station,

0:15:510:15:54

'where the first of Mark Wallinger's labyrinths was unveiled,

0:15:540:15:58

'so it feels plugged into the underground network it controls.'

0:15:580:16:02

Now, if I'm going to find the minotaur anywhere

0:16:060:16:09

at the heart of the labyrinth, it's got to be here -

0:16:090:16:12

the headquarters of London Underground, 55 Broadway.

0:16:120:16:15

Because this is a remarkable building,

0:16:150:16:18

which Frank Pick commissioned, Charles Holden built.

0:16:180:16:21

From the outside it's very imposing, it's full of Portland stone,

0:16:210:16:24

78,000 cubic feet of this grand material

0:16:240:16:26

but on the inside as well, there are so many wonderful details.

0:16:260:16:30

Walnut woodwork, bronze fittings, this gizmo.

0:16:300:16:35

This is amazing, look at this -

0:16:350:16:36

this is train intervals in an era before CCTV,

0:16:360:16:40

this was a device with a small needle that marked

0:16:400:16:42

every time various trains on the different lines passed a particular point.

0:16:420:16:46

This is like the whirrings of the minotaur's brain, if you like.

0:16:460:16:49

'It's another rational detail, courtesy of Frank Pick.

0:16:520:16:56

'It does a practical job and it's beautiful,

0:16:560:16:59

'absolutely fit for purpose.

0:16:590:17:01

'Among the boxes of papers at the London Transport Museum

0:17:030:17:07

'they have Pick's personal scrapbooks.

0:17:070:17:10

'They're unexpectedly revealing - eclectic, to say the least.

0:17:100:17:14

'And certainly not above the celebrity culture of the day.'

0:17:140:17:17

When you flick through, what do you feel this tells us about the man?

0:17:170:17:22

Quite a lot of it is wryly humourous,

0:17:220:17:24

or it's an interesting juxtaposition.

0:17:240:17:28

At the National Maritime Museum, this must be the Queen Mother,

0:17:280:17:31

staring vacantly into the distance. The Queen looks slightly bored.

0:17:310:17:36

"Evidently a trying occasion," he's written underneath.

0:17:360:17:40

So he always writes in green, does he?

0:17:400:17:43

Yes, green ink is one of his characteristics.

0:17:430:17:46

Like the head of MI6?

0:17:460:17:48

He once wrote on one of Charles Holden's drawings,

0:17:480:17:51

"approved under duress", in green ink.

0:17:510:17:54

There's some humour there in the green ink which is worth hanging on to.

0:17:540:17:59

'The programme of station-building that really made Pick and Holden's reputation

0:18:060:18:10

'was the extension to the Piccadilly Line in 1932-3.

0:18:100:18:14

'It still has its enthusiastic advocates today.'

0:18:140:18:19

I've written about the Piccadilly Line, which is the line of luxury,

0:18:190:18:22

the lovely line, which goes to all

0:18:220:18:24

the loveliest places in London in its central stretch.

0:18:240:18:29

In its outer reaches, it goes to some quite unlovely places,

0:18:300:18:34

but what it does there is bring a mission of civilisation

0:18:340:18:37

because it brings lovely 1930s modernist stations.

0:18:370:18:41

Why do you think Charles Holden's stations were so successful?

0:18:410:18:45

First, they glorified the suburbs they were in.

0:18:450:18:49

-So, if you've been to Arnos Grove - have you been?

-I haven't.

0:18:490:18:53

-I've seen pictures!

-Well, I've been to Arnos Grove. I've done Arnos Grove,

0:18:530:18:57

it's immensely glorified by its beautiful station, or Southgate.

0:18:570:19:01

In the centre of Southgate is a flying saucer.

0:19:010:19:05

So it glorifies the place it's in,

0:19:060:19:09

and it also says, "Come in here - this is your escape route"

0:19:090:19:14

and it's marvellous. You can go to the magic of uptown top ranking.

0:19:140:19:20

'But I think the greatest monument to this period is not in stone,

0:19:300:19:34

'but in two dimensions.

0:19:340:19:36

'Consistently voted one of the design classics of the century -

0:19:360:19:40

'Harry Beck's map of the Underground.

0:19:400:19:42

'It was a labour of love.

0:19:420:19:44

'Beck was an engineering draughtsman not actually employed by London Transport at the time.

0:19:440:19:49

'Strictly, it's a diagram rather than a map.

0:19:490:19:52

'If you're going underground,

0:19:520:19:54

'you don't need to know the geography - connections are the thing.

0:19:540:19:57

'It was an obsession for its creator

0:19:580:20:00

'and has inspired countless variations on its colour-coded theme.

0:20:000:20:04

'But it's now a fixture of the Underground

0:20:060:20:08

'and the underground of our imagination.'

0:20:080:20:11

If you've ever wondered which is the most popular Tube poster ever,

0:20:120:20:16

in all of the 150 years of London Underground's existence,

0:20:160:20:20

then the answer is this.

0:20:200:20:23

The Tate Gallery by tube. Get it?

0:20:230:20:26

I thought I'd have a go at recreating it

0:20:260:20:28

but it's much harder to do than it looks.

0:20:280:20:31

It was created in 1987 by an artist called David Booth

0:20:310:20:34

and in the end he had to use toothpaste and moulded plastic to create the finished poster.

0:20:340:20:39

I think the fact that this is the most popular poster in the Tube's history says it all.

0:20:390:20:44

Art has always been an essential element in London Underground's identity.

0:20:440:20:49

The people have spoken.

0:20:490:20:51

'One of the things I like about Wallinger's piece is that it seems

0:20:550:20:59

'to play off the crystal clarity of Harry Beck's map.

0:20:590:21:02

'It deliberately withholds its meaning.

0:21:020:21:04

'First you have to find them. It's a shaggy dog story,

0:21:040:21:07

'a treasure hunt or a sinister corporate logo sprouting all over the Tube.

0:21:070:21:11

'It could almost be street art, yet it looks official.

0:21:110:21:15

'That's because Wallinger's 270 labyrinths are being made

0:21:150:21:20

'using the same process as the other Underground signs,

0:21:200:21:23

'in vitreous enamel on metal.'

0:21:230:21:25

'I wanted it to kind of fit in with the furniture, to an extent.'

0:21:270:21:33

I hope it is a little bit understated, perhaps, yeah.

0:21:330:21:37

'Despite this apparent modesty, the labyrinths are built to last.

0:21:400:21:45

'They'll mark their individual stations for as long as the stations survive.'

0:21:450:21:49

When the Blitz began in the summer of 1940,

0:21:590:22:01

the first instinct of London's traumatised population

0:22:010:22:04

was to head deep beneath the city streets

0:22:040:22:07

to find shelter in the Underground.

0:22:070:22:09

Which was against the will of the network's managers.

0:22:090:22:11

Before long, though, simply because of the sheer numbers of people

0:22:110:22:15

who kept on flouting the rules and hunkering down here during air raids,

0:22:150:22:18

the network's bosses were forced to change their position.

0:22:180:22:22

But they managed to turn a potentially embarrassing U-turn

0:22:220:22:26

into a PR triumph and soon, sheltering on the Underground

0:22:260:22:29

which came to typify doughty Blitz spirit, was a point of corporate pride.

0:22:290:22:33

They installed bunk beds on the platforms.

0:22:330:22:36

More than 22,000 by the end of the war.

0:22:360:22:38

And it wasn't just people who found shelter here.

0:22:380:22:40

The Elgin Marbles were crated up and carted off

0:22:400:22:43

from the British Museum

0:22:430:22:44

and ended up here in Aldwych, safe from the bombs.

0:22:440:22:47

'In the film Out Of Chaos,

0:22:520:22:54

'art was once again part of the benign propaganda of the Tube.

0:22:540:22:58

'Sculptor Henry Moore, an official war artist,

0:22:580:23:02

'is seen to find inspiration among the shelterers.'

0:23:020:23:05

'On almost any night during a raid,

0:23:060:23:08

'this figure might have been seen wandering about.

0:23:080:23:11

'Henry Moore the sculptor.

0:23:130:23:14

'Here perhaps was the one artist most capable of immortalising

0:23:150:23:19

'the stoic endurance and suffering of these people.'

0:23:190:23:22

'The Underground had done its bit. Taken its blows.

0:23:300:23:34

'And by and large, kept on running.

0:23:340:23:36

'But after the war, it was a different story. It paid the price.

0:23:370:23:42

'Nationalised in 1948, it was starved of funds.

0:23:420:23:46

'There was a lowering of status, a darkening of mood.

0:23:460:23:50

'As if in denial,

0:23:530:23:55

'in the 1950s, London Transport commissioned documentaries

0:23:550:23:58

'which were either recollections of the golden age of the '30s

0:23:580:24:01

'or reminders of the benevolent secret army

0:24:010:24:04

'working for us all behind the scenes.'

0:24:040:24:07

Morning, Charlie. Looking for someone, mate?

0:24:080:24:11

He ain't come this way. He must have turned off down a rabbit hole.

0:24:110:24:15

-It's the gaffer again.

-Morning.

-Morning, inspector.

0:24:150:24:19

'The relentlessly chipper Cockney commentary

0:24:200:24:23

'introduced us to the fluffers.'

0:24:230:24:25

'He's always got a witty back answer -

0:24:250:24:27

'trouble is he never thinks of it till he's left these fluffers miles behind.

0:24:270:24:32

'That's what they're called - fluffers.'

0:24:320:24:35

'In the '70s and '80s,

0:24:350:24:36

'observational documentaries showed that just maintaining the status quo

0:24:360:24:40

'of the ageing system was a never-ending task.'

0:24:400:24:44

See the hair?

0:24:440:24:45

'By now, the family that is the network seems to have become

0:24:480:24:52

'slightly more eccentric and borderline dysfunctional.'

0:24:520:24:56

Who's in charge here?

0:24:560:24:58

They should put something downstairs to save me from walking all the bloody way up these steps!

0:24:580:25:03

'But it wasn't all bad.

0:25:060:25:08

'1986 brought us a real treat. Poems on the Underground.'

0:25:080:25:12

I think it's a very good idea.

0:25:120:25:14

It's better than a good many of the advertisements I see on the Underground.

0:25:140:25:19

"I have eaten the plums that were in the ice box

0:25:190:25:22

"which you were probably saving for breakfast.

0:25:220:25:24

"Forgive me, they were delicious, so sweet and so cold."

0:25:240:25:27

LAUGHTER

0:25:270:25:29

'Everyone loves the Tube. Everyone hates the Tube.

0:25:340:25:38

'You always remember your first time.

0:25:380:25:40

'And people develop sometimes passionate allegiances to their lines.'

0:25:400:25:44

If you had to describe the Bakerloo line in a single word,

0:25:480:25:52

what would that be?

0:25:520:25:54

Well, it's its colour, brown.

0:25:540:25:56

And everything that refers to, in a way,

0:25:560:25:59

the brown-ness of it does suggest its slightly dowdy reputation.

0:25:590:26:04

Although I've always adored it, possibly because it was my first.

0:26:040:26:08

The Piccadilly Line experience is very good,

0:26:080:26:11

I know other experiences aren't quite so good,

0:26:110:26:13

but then there are experiences which are hyper -

0:26:130:26:16

the glass and steel cathedrals of the Jubilee Line

0:26:160:26:20

are completely fantastic.

0:26:200:26:22

The thing I have noticed about the Underground

0:26:240:26:27

is that people's attention turns inwards to a remarkable extent.

0:26:270:26:30

Londoners, city dwellers in general, are often showing off,

0:26:300:26:34

they're acting versions of themselves. On the Underground, it's as if they go into themselves.

0:26:340:26:40

Somehow, underground it takes an almost dreamlike quality.

0:26:420:26:46

It can be grubby and packed and difficult sometimes,

0:26:460:26:49

but I do love that idea that it's this phantom representation

0:26:490:26:53

of the city on the surface

0:26:530:26:55

and it's both as old as it is, 150 years old,

0:26:550:26:58

but also about the future, it's constantly moving us into the future.

0:26:580:27:01

Even the dear old Bakerloo!

0:27:010:27:02

'Mark Wallinger's labyrinths lend a mythic dimension to our daily lives,

0:27:070:27:12

'but in a contemporary, tongue-in-cheek way.

0:27:120:27:14

'We're not really Theseus

0:27:140:27:17

'and the closest we come to the minotaur

0:27:170:27:19

'is an encounter with the boss.

0:27:190:27:21

'But we are all heroes in our own knotted stories.

0:27:210:27:24

'The red cross is his mark, but it means "you are here".

0:27:250:27:28

One of the other things that's quite striking about the image

0:27:310:27:34

is that it actually resembles a cross-section of a human brain,

0:27:340:27:38

with the various lobes in all these swirls.

0:27:380:27:41

And I quite like that - I'm not sure it's deliberate,

0:27:410:27:43

but it seems to hint at the underlying meaning of the piece,

0:27:430:27:47

which is that this isn't a sign directing us very simply

0:27:470:27:51

to go this way to the Victoria Line, go to the way out,

0:27:510:27:55

instead it's a sign that's inviting us to go to a much murkier space,

0:27:550:27:59

our own imaginations inside our heads.

0:27:590:28:03

And who knows what we're going to find in the centre!

0:28:050:28:07

'Open-endedness is what makes it art

0:28:120:28:14

'and I love the fact it's on the Underground.'

0:28:140:28:17

'Wallinger's works are designed to be there in perpetuity.

0:28:210:28:24

'Station to station.

0:28:250:28:28

'270 dancing paths.

0:28:280:28:30

'From the roof of his studio, he can see the vertiginous pit

0:28:340:28:37

'that is the new CrossRail station at the centre of the city.

0:28:370:28:40

'The next age of the Underground is taking shape.'

0:28:410:28:44

'If you want to find out more about Mark Wallinger's labyrinth,

0:29:000:29:03

'visit the Culture Show online.'

0:29:030:29:04

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:29:120:29:14

Download Subtitles

SRT

ASS