0:00:08 > 0:00:13London's British Library is home to a staggering 4.5 million maps.
0:00:16 > 0:00:19Mysterious and beautiful, these rarely seen treasures
0:00:19 > 0:00:22are much more than two dimensional depictions of a physical world.
0:00:25 > 0:00:30A map is definitely by far the best synthesis of...topography -
0:00:30 > 0:00:35the geography of a place - together with its history, and art as well.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38So, you've got great themes all combining in one
0:00:38 > 0:00:41to produce something of huge beauty.
0:00:44 > 0:00:48Our love affair with maps is old as civilisation itself.
0:00:50 > 0:00:55Each map tells its own story and hides its own secrets.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00Maps delight, they unsettle, they reveal deep truths
0:01:00 > 0:01:05not just about where we come from, but about who we are.
0:01:09 > 0:01:14A map is a thing of beauty, it's a place where you express the cosmos,
0:01:14 > 0:01:19you try and bring together the whole view of the world, so you can understand it.
0:01:22 > 0:01:27Among the British Library's treasures are three remarkable maps of London.
0:01:27 > 0:01:33Three visions of a changing urban landscape spanning 300 years.
0:01:33 > 0:01:37Three works of art, beauty and science.
0:01:37 > 0:01:39But they also serve another purpose.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42A map orders a city,
0:01:42 > 0:01:49it makes it navigable, it makes it rational, it makes it clean.
0:01:50 > 0:01:53It makes it all of those things that,
0:01:53 > 0:01:56in the 17th and 18th century, it's not.
0:01:59 > 0:02:05Beneath their surface, they distort the truth, hide secrets and tell lies.
0:02:07 > 0:02:13This is the story of how map-makers have exploited art, science and clinical precision
0:02:13 > 0:02:17to impose visual order on the chaos of city life.
0:02:41 > 0:02:47In September 1666, the Great Fire destroyed almost all of the old city of London.
0:02:48 > 0:02:55400 streets and 14,000 homes were gone.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00London was devastated by this.
0:03:00 > 0:03:02Obviously, where do you start
0:03:02 > 0:03:07when your entire heart has been cut out?
0:03:10 > 0:03:13London had to be rebuilt, almost from scratch,
0:03:13 > 0:03:17in the largest construction process Britain had ever seen.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23Out of the ashes would rise a new city,
0:03:23 > 0:03:25and a new city needed a new map.
0:03:26 > 0:03:32If you can see the city and understand it and know what is there,
0:03:32 > 0:03:34it's easier to control and organise.
0:03:34 > 0:03:38If you can envision the city you would like it to be,
0:03:38 > 0:03:40then perhaps you can create it.
0:03:44 > 0:03:50In the 1670s, map-maker William Morgan set out to create that new map.
0:03:54 > 0:03:59The survey alone was on an unprecedented scale.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04It took six years to complete,
0:04:04 > 0:04:08with Morgan's team of surveyors measuring every London street.
0:04:11 > 0:04:16For sheer ambition, beauty and cost, his groundbreaking, masterpiece map,
0:04:16 > 0:04:22completed in 1682, was the first truly modern map of London.
0:04:37 > 0:04:42Londoners are going to be looking to a London which offers them hope,
0:04:42 > 0:04:49which offers them a sense of promise and also a sense of pride as well.
0:04:49 > 0:04:54And certainly Morgan's map embodies this type of pride.
0:04:56 > 0:05:01The map's size alone expressed pride and confidence.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04Made up of 16 separate sheets,
0:05:04 > 0:05:08measuring a mighty eight feet by five, and embodying
0:05:08 > 0:05:15all the latest thinking of the new scientific era of the Enlightenment.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19The scientific aspect of the map, or the appearance of science,
0:05:19 > 0:05:23is extremely important because,
0:05:23 > 0:05:29up to that date, England had not really produced a map of this nature.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32This was the first time that the entire city
0:05:32 > 0:05:37had ever been accurately surveyed, measured and drawn to scale.
0:05:39 > 0:05:41They wanted, through this map,
0:05:41 > 0:05:46to show that London had emerged from the dark days of the Fire of London
0:05:46 > 0:05:51and was equal to anybody and better than most.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59With its beautiful panorama of the city along the bottom,
0:05:59 > 0:06:01with its decorative images of the King
0:06:01 > 0:06:06and of the great buildings of the city,
0:06:06 > 0:06:09it looks grand and ordered, objective and true.
0:06:11 > 0:06:16But delve beneath the surface and a very different story emerges.
0:06:19 > 0:06:25Inside the city, things are tidied up, to convey the impression
0:06:25 > 0:06:29that it is well-policed, it is well-ordered, it is as it should be.
0:06:32 > 0:06:35London was the fastest growing city in Europe,
0:06:35 > 0:06:39and with expansion came growing problems of poverty and crime.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44The whole image has been sanitised.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47If you look at the mapping of the East End,
0:06:47 > 0:06:51you will see none of the overcrowding,
0:06:51 > 0:06:53none of the insanitary conditions,
0:06:53 > 0:06:57that really typified the East End at that time.
0:06:57 > 0:07:01Similarly, if you look in the West End, you will see
0:07:01 > 0:07:04a picture of total elegance.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07You will see in St James' Park deer grazing very happily.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10Generally, you will get an impression of order
0:07:10 > 0:07:14which didn't really correspond with the reality.
0:07:14 > 0:07:18But then again that's map-making. You want to put your best foot forward.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24So Morgan's aim is to create an impression of order and beauty.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28But he doesn't only do it by leaving things out.
0:07:28 > 0:07:33In order to convey this impression with still greater force,
0:07:33 > 0:07:37the map-makers have included certain buildings,
0:07:37 > 0:07:41most notably St Paul's Cathedral, which hadn't yet been rebuilt.
0:07:42 > 0:07:48Morgan copied Christopher Wren's original design for St Paul's,
0:07:48 > 0:07:52and showed it on the map as a completed building.
0:07:57 > 0:08:01The real St Paul's would not be finished for another 25 years
0:08:01 > 0:08:05and, in the end, looked very different
0:08:05 > 0:08:09with a larger dome, a shorter nave and fewer windows.
0:08:09 > 0:08:14So Morgan's map enshrines a fantasy building that never was.
0:08:19 > 0:08:26In fact, Wren, the greatest British architect of his day, had drawn up plans for the whole of London,
0:08:26 > 0:08:30shown on these original engravings made after the fire.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34All grid patterns, radiating roads and symmetry.
0:08:34 > 0:08:38These were plans for an idealised Enlightenment city.
0:08:43 > 0:08:47There's a desire to glorify London as a monarchical capital,
0:08:47 > 0:08:52to depict it as this city rising from the ashes, as it were.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56There's a real feeling of focusing on it as a capital city
0:08:56 > 0:09:00in this period in a way that hasn't happened before.
0:09:00 > 0:09:04Morgan is very much buying in to that desire to present that vision of London.
0:09:08 > 0:09:12So the vision of Morgan's map owes much to Wren.
0:09:12 > 0:09:18In the end, Wren's designs for an ideal London were never realised.
0:09:18 > 0:09:22But Morgan's map keeps their spirit and style alive
0:09:22 > 0:09:27by including St Paul's, by omitting prisons and dark alleys
0:09:27 > 0:09:29and by widening boulevards.
0:09:37 > 0:09:42The whole idea of urban perfection had its origins 200 years earlier
0:09:42 > 0:09:48in a masterpiece painting of the Renaissance by the Italian artist Piero Della Francesca.
0:09:51 > 0:09:55It's a pure fantasy entitled the Ideal City.
0:09:56 > 0:10:02By the time of the Enlightenment, cities all over Europe were trying to put this ideal into practice.
0:10:04 > 0:10:09It's beautiful, it's classically designed,
0:10:09 > 0:10:12it's very graphic and it's empty.
0:10:12 > 0:10:15Very, very noticeably, there are no people.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19There's no sewage, no dirt,
0:10:19 > 0:10:24and that says an awful lot about what people regard as being problems in their cities.
0:10:28 > 0:10:32A map is a city with its human element extracted.
0:10:32 > 0:10:37A map is a monument to human achievement and building,
0:10:37 > 0:10:42but it is not a monument to human behaviour.
0:10:44 > 0:10:51Morgan's cleaned-up vision of urban perfection may have been economical with the truth,
0:10:51 > 0:10:53but it proved hugely popular.
0:11:00 > 0:11:06For the next 60 years, every new map of London was based on his original,
0:11:06 > 0:11:11stimulating a map trade that modern-day map seller Tim Bryers understands well.
0:11:13 > 0:11:20In a strange way, having a map shop in central London, people often come in and ask me for maps of London.
0:11:20 > 0:11:25And I can't imagine that it was too different from my predecessors.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29I think that the maps of London that were being sold
0:11:29 > 0:11:35by map sellers such as Wild or Reynolds or Mogg
0:11:35 > 0:11:41would have been printed in huge numbers, frequently revised, sold in various formats,
0:11:41 > 0:11:47either as a single sheet on paper uncoloured, perhaps coloured, perhaps the deluxe version -
0:11:47 > 0:11:51coloured laid down on linen, folding into a slip case or cloth covers,
0:11:51 > 0:11:55and at different prices to suit different needs, tastes or different pockets.
0:11:56 > 0:12:01Morgan's sanitised map became the iconic image of London
0:12:01 > 0:12:07sold in the network of map shops that ran like a vein through the heart of the city.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10But Morgan didn't share in the map's success.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14London map makers produced
0:12:14 > 0:12:19lots and lots of London maps and by and large they did them very well.
0:12:19 > 0:12:26And, of course, all the smaller London maps - maps produced for tourists, pocket maps -
0:12:28 > 0:12:31were all based on the Morgan map for year after year.
0:12:31 > 0:12:36So map makers made money out of the Morgan map, but not Morgan.
0:12:36 > 0:12:41All we know of Morgan's fate is that he never made another map.
0:12:41 > 0:12:46Only in his 30s, he sold the plates of his wonderful work to another publisher
0:12:46 > 0:12:49and was never heard of again.
0:12:49 > 0:12:54A casualty, like many of his contemporaries, in the perilous world of map-making.
0:12:56 > 0:13:03His contemporary Emanuel Bowen dies in poverty, almost blind through age.
0:13:04 > 0:13:12Thomas Jefferies who ends up with the Morgan plates goes bankrupt in 1766.
0:13:12 > 0:13:20His net assets in his will amount to £20 for a lifetime of endeavour.
0:13:20 > 0:13:25And these men were amongst the best geographers of their time.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35The costs of map-making were huge.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38The survey involved teams of people for years.
0:13:38 > 0:13:45Drawing and engraving each plate required scores of skilled artisans and costly materials.
0:13:45 > 0:13:49But map-makers soon discovered that the simple act of colouring
0:13:49 > 0:13:52made a map both more desirable and more profitable.
0:13:55 > 0:13:59Here we've got two examples of exactly the same plate.
0:13:59 > 0:14:01This is Tivoli in Italy.
0:14:01 > 0:14:05One which is black and white as it was originally published,
0:14:05 > 0:14:09and one which has been coloured for the publisher in the 16th century.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12And the purchaser would have paid a premium for the coloured example.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17In some ways, the colour actually creates its own problems.
0:14:17 > 0:14:23On the black and white image, you see a lot more of the engraved detail.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27These very strong colours, which were being used by the colourists
0:14:27 > 0:14:31in the 16th century, actually blot out some of the engraved detail,
0:14:31 > 0:14:34although they do make a very striking visual image.
0:14:35 > 0:14:40A map coloured at the time would have been coloured for the publisher
0:14:40 > 0:14:42by a professional map colourist,
0:14:42 > 0:14:46and the purchasers paid handsomely for their services.
0:14:46 > 0:14:50It wasn't a choice of going in and saying, "Well, I'd like this black and white, or with colour,"
0:14:50 > 0:14:53you paid a real premium for the coloured example.
0:14:54 > 0:14:57This beautifully coloured edition of Morgan's map
0:14:57 > 0:15:03was produced in 1903 and is for sale today in a London map shop.
0:15:03 > 0:15:06It's a mark of the map's enduring legacy
0:15:06 > 0:15:14and of Morgan's unique achievement in creating the first complete survey of the whole of London.
0:15:21 > 0:15:25But by the 1740s, London had outgrown Morgan's map.
0:15:25 > 0:15:30The city was expanding at an extraordinary rate.
0:15:30 > 0:15:34The population had almost doubled in the previous 50 years.
0:15:34 > 0:15:37London needed a new masterpiece map.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44Map-maker John Rocque set out to make it.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47It would be the biggest project of his life -
0:15:47 > 0:15:53to create the most beautiful and most detailed map of London the world had ever seen,
0:15:53 > 0:15:56and to pursue an unusual political agenda.
0:15:59 > 0:16:04Completed in 1746, printed on no less than 24 separate sheets,
0:16:04 > 0:16:10it measured a massive 13 feet by 8 - nearly twice the length of Morgan's map.
0:16:12 > 0:16:17In style too, it was a radical departure from Morgan.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20Gone were the pictures of kings and images of buildings.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23This was new-style French map-making.
0:16:24 > 0:16:29Stripped bare, super-rational - the ultimate Enlightenment map.
0:16:30 > 0:16:35Rocque was a French emigre who permanently moved to London.
0:16:35 > 0:16:39But his use of French style was not just about aesthetics.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42The map's whole purpose was to send a signal
0:16:42 > 0:16:47to Britain's greatest commercial and military rival - France.
0:16:47 > 0:16:51It was made during the war of the Austrian succession
0:16:51 > 0:16:57and the whole purpose of the map was to demonstrate conclusively that London was bigger than Paris.
0:16:59 > 0:17:01London stood as a symbol for the British Empire
0:17:01 > 0:17:06and they wanted to demonstrate also that, with such a big city,
0:17:06 > 0:17:09Britain was also a bigger place than France.
0:17:09 > 0:17:13It had more colonies, it had more commerce.
0:17:13 > 0:17:16In fact, the cartouche demonstrates this perfectly.
0:17:16 > 0:17:20It shows all corners of the world paying tribute to London
0:17:20 > 0:17:23and bringing in their wares.
0:17:23 > 0:17:28And another thing that helps to convey this, and perhaps this hasn't been sufficiently emphasised,
0:17:28 > 0:17:31is the sheer quality of the engraving.
0:17:31 > 0:17:35It is just exquisitely done and, again, it is the art
0:17:35 > 0:17:38that helps with the persuasion, with the propaganda.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41The two are linked together and justify the cost.
0:17:44 > 0:17:46And you get it all on one map.
0:17:46 > 0:17:50I think it is an extremely seductive piece.
0:17:56 > 0:18:02By the middle of the 18th century, what you have is a genuine transition
0:18:02 > 0:18:08from what people regarded as a medieval city to perhaps the beginnings of a modern city,
0:18:08 > 0:18:13and the beginnings of the modern London that we recognise.
0:18:15 > 0:18:22A lot of the new thoroughfares have been built, the churches, the great buildings,
0:18:22 > 0:18:25the great exchange is being built in this period.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28And, as society, you're also starting to see development,
0:18:28 > 0:18:32so the growth of green spaces for people to walk in.
0:18:32 > 0:18:36This is the era of sociability - the growth of places where people go just to relax.
0:18:42 > 0:18:48The abiding impression of the Rocque map is one of serenity.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55This is London in mid-afternoon.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59You can see the shadows on the trees are all pointing to the east,
0:18:59 > 0:19:02the sun is in the west, it is tea-time on a summer's day.
0:19:04 > 0:19:06This is aristocratic London,
0:19:06 > 0:19:11wealthy London, the London of privilege and taste.
0:19:11 > 0:19:14These are the buyers of the map and it is a London reflected in their image.
0:19:20 > 0:19:25Rocque's map shows the perfect Enlightenment city.
0:19:25 > 0:19:30It's beautiful, it's clinical and controlled.
0:19:30 > 0:19:32It imposes order
0:19:32 > 0:19:36and it gives all the appearance of objective truth.
0:19:39 > 0:19:44The whole objective behind creating a map
0:19:44 > 0:19:49would be to somehow capture and contextualise and impose order
0:19:49 > 0:19:54on a city which is always moving, always growing, always changing,
0:19:54 > 0:20:00which is falling apart as it's burgeoning at the same time.
0:20:05 > 0:20:09But while Rocque was busy imposing order, his contemporary -
0:20:09 > 0:20:14the painter William Hogarth - was offering a very different truth
0:20:14 > 0:20:18by revealing what Rocque left out.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21The chaotic reality of city life.
0:20:24 > 0:20:29No-one actually knew 18th-century London better than Hogarth.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32You get the feeling,
0:20:32 > 0:20:35looking at the paintings and the prints that he made,
0:20:35 > 0:20:37that he was fascinated.
0:20:37 > 0:20:40And not just during the day, either.
0:20:40 > 0:20:45He realised that although London was pretty damn busy then
0:20:45 > 0:20:47and very, very noisy,
0:20:47 > 0:20:53when it came to the night time, when darkness fell, all hell broke loose.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04In Hogarth's famous engraving, Night, Rocque's house is featured,
0:21:04 > 0:21:07next to the notorious pub the Rummer.
0:21:09 > 0:21:13So Rocque and Hogarth inhabited the same London at the same time.
0:21:13 > 0:21:15But you'd never guess it.
0:21:18 > 0:21:23What Hogarth brings together in one image is absolutely mind-boggling.
0:21:23 > 0:21:26Your eye doesn't know where to rest.
0:21:26 > 0:21:30Half the time you're looking up and around
0:21:30 > 0:21:34seeing that there's a character pouring a pot of urine
0:21:34 > 0:21:38down from a great height, bouncing off the building
0:21:38 > 0:21:41and splashing onto people in the street.
0:21:41 > 0:21:48There are bodies everywhere, people screaming, and according to Hogarth this went on all night long.
0:21:48 > 0:21:51I don't think anybody got any sleep.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57The fact that Rocque's house appears
0:21:57 > 0:22:02in this image of the crazy street by Hogarth is hilarious, really,
0:22:02 > 0:22:06because nothing could be more different than the Hogarthian view
0:22:06 > 0:22:10of everyone going mad in the metropolis, and Rocque.
0:22:15 > 0:22:19He's trying very hard to pretend that London is orderly
0:22:19 > 0:22:23and that London can be systematised
0:22:23 > 0:22:27and then you go back to Hogarth and realise no, actually.
0:22:27 > 0:22:35Because the thing about London is people, and people just make it into a mad-house.
0:22:39 > 0:22:45Certainly, the appeal of Rocque's map would be that it imposes order on chaos.
0:22:45 > 0:22:50It's the desire to impose science onto something
0:22:50 > 0:22:55and to make it scientific, which may not be able, necessarily,
0:22:55 > 0:22:59to be scientific because of the human element.
0:23:09 > 0:23:14250 years after Rocque, it is precisely that human element
0:23:14 > 0:23:17that artist Steven Walter revels in.
0:23:20 > 0:23:24His 2008 city map shows London as an island -
0:23:24 > 0:23:29a wry joke on the capital's obsession with itself.
0:23:32 > 0:23:35Walter's map brings the story full circle,
0:23:35 > 0:23:38by glorying in the human chaos
0:23:38 > 0:23:42that Morgan and Rocque worked so hard to disguise.
0:23:44 > 0:23:48At one level, it's a straight topographical map of London
0:23:48 > 0:23:55with the streets shown, the main sights shown, the main physical features shown, parks shown.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01And then there's another side to the map.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08Walter reveals human city life, warts and all.
0:24:08 > 0:24:13The subversive, the sheer range of detail,
0:24:13 > 0:24:16random facts mixed with personal moments,
0:24:16 > 0:24:18are all part of the new map's point.
0:24:18 > 0:24:23Walter has conventional locations like the London Eye.
0:24:25 > 0:24:27There's the downright obscure -
0:24:27 > 0:24:31here's where Kate Bush attended a convent in Hampstead.
0:24:31 > 0:24:34And then there's the utterly personal.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37Here in East Ham is his nan's house
0:24:37 > 0:24:41where he made depressing trips on Sundays.
0:24:41 > 0:24:44We know that maps are subjective,
0:24:44 > 0:24:49but I think he carries subjectivity to a degree which is rare in map-making -
0:24:49 > 0:24:55actually indicating where he was, episodes which nearly happened to him or actually happened to him.
0:24:55 > 0:25:00It is a marvellous amalgam of bits and pieces - solid information
0:25:00 > 0:25:02and the autobiographical.
0:25:09 > 0:25:14Like Hogarth's paintings, pubs pepper Steven Walter's map,
0:25:14 > 0:25:17from one end of the city to the other.
0:25:20 > 0:25:23This Islington pub is on the map.
0:25:23 > 0:25:26And the map is in the pub.
0:25:28 > 0:25:30With the artist.
0:25:35 > 0:25:38I think this is a certain time in human history,
0:25:38 > 0:25:42where so much is already figured out and mapped,
0:25:42 > 0:25:46and at the time of Rocque and others,
0:25:46 > 0:25:51there was still a possibility to physically pioneer.
0:25:57 > 0:26:0110 years ago, I was making a lot of observational drawings
0:26:01 > 0:26:04and photos of landscape
0:26:04 > 0:26:08and taking them into a process of experimental map-making.
0:26:08 > 0:26:12I tended to always work over these compositions
0:26:12 > 0:26:17to produce these signs and symbols, often abstract.
0:26:17 > 0:26:23And so I decided to build images and that led me on to building maps
0:26:23 > 0:26:25of these signs and symbols.
0:26:30 > 0:26:33Despite the satire and the jokes,
0:26:33 > 0:26:37Steven Walter's map is, at heart, a celebration of London.
0:26:37 > 0:26:40Just like the maps of Rocque and Morgan.
0:26:45 > 0:26:50Morgan is celebrating a London that's well-ordered, it is as it should be.
0:26:52 > 0:26:57With Rocque, it's London which is bigger than Paris
0:26:57 > 0:27:02and is being portrayed in a rather spiteful way almost, a satirical way.
0:27:04 > 0:27:08And I think that, in that way, Steven Walter's is also celebrating London,
0:27:08 > 0:27:14but it's a London which thrives on its rather anarchic nature.
0:27:16 > 0:27:21And it is a London that almost defiantly disregards standards.
0:27:23 > 0:27:26It's, if you like,
0:27:26 > 0:27:31dare one say it, the modern established view.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38In the end, all city maps,
0:27:38 > 0:27:44however beautiful, however much they lie or joke or celebrate,
0:27:44 > 0:27:45take on the impossible
0:27:45 > 0:27:51when they try to impose two dimensional order on the chaos that is urban life.
0:27:58 > 0:28:01To explore the new world of digital mapping,
0:28:01 > 0:28:08and to find out more about the British Library map exhibition, go to bbc.co.uk/beautyofmaps