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00:00London's British Library is home to a staggering four and a half...
00:11These rarely seen treasures are much more than two-dimensional depictions...
00:15...of topography, so the geography of a place, together with its history, and of course art as well...
00:21...is as old as civilisation itself.
00:25Each map tells its own story and hides its own secrets.
00:33Maps delight, they uns...
00:38A map is a thing of the whole view of the world so you can understand it.
00:43...are three remarkable maps of London.
00:47Three visions of works of art, beauty and science of a purpose.
00:53A map is imaginable, it makes it rational, it makes it clean, it makes it all of those things...
01:01...that in the 17th century and in the 18th century, it's not.
01:07Beneath their surface, they distort the truth, hide secrets and tell lies.
01:15This is the story of how map makers have exploited art, science and clinical precision...
01:21...to impose visual order on the chaos of city life.
01:25In September 1666, the great fire destroyed almost all of the old city of London.
01:53400 streets, 600 churches and 14,000 homes were gone.
02:05London was devastated by this. Obviously, where do you start when your entire heart has been cut out?
02:13London had to be rebuilt almost from scratch.
02:19In the largest construction process Britain had ever seen.
02:23Out of the ashes would rise a new city.
02:27And a new city needed a new map.
02:33If you can see the city and understand it and know exactly what is there...
02:37...it is easier to control and to organise.
02:40If you can envision the city you would like it to be, then perhaps you can...
02:50The survey alone was on an unprecedented scale.
02:55It took six years to complete, was the first truly modern map of London.
03:15Londoners are going to be looking to a London which offers them hope.
03:20Which offers them a sense of promise and also a sense of pride as well.
03:27And certainly, Morgan's map.
03:31The map's size alone expressed pride and confidence.
03:37Made up of 16 separate sheets, measuring a mighty eight feet by five...
03:43...and embodying all the latest thinking of the new scientific era of the Enlightenment.
03:49The scientific aspect of the map is really extremely, or the appearance of science is extremely important...
03:57...because up to that date England had not really produced a map of this nature.
04:05This was the first time that the entire city had ever been accurately surveyed, measured and drawn to scale.
04:13They wanted, through this map, to show that London had emerged from the dark days of the fire of London...
04:21...and it was equal to anybody and better than most.
04:31With its beautiful panorama of the city, the links of the city...
04:35...it looks grand and ordered, objective and true.
04:43But delve beneath the surface, and a very different story emerges.
04:50Inside, there's not any depiction in the map, for instance...
04:54...of any of the prisons that we know were in the city, like Newgate.
04:58This growing city in Europe.
05:00And with expansion came growing problems of poverty and crime.
05:06But of the hundreds of slums, prisons and workhouses that peppered the city...
05:10...not one appears on Morgan's supposed map.
05:16The whole image, if you look at the mapping of the East End...
05:19...you will see none of the insanitary conditions...
05:23...that really typified the East End at that time, very happily.
05:28Generally, you will get an impression of order...
05:31...which didn't really correspond with the reality.
05:33But then again, that's map-making. You want to put your best foot forward.
05:39So Morgan's...
05:41In order to convey this impression with still greater force...
05:46...the map-makers have included certain buildings...
05:48...Wren's original design for St. Paul's...
05:52...and showed it on the map.
05:53The real St. Paul's wouldn't be finished for another 25 years...
06:00...and in the end looked very different...
06:03...with a larger dome, a shorter nave...
06:06...and...
06:07...in fact, Wren, the greatest Britain in London...
06:14...shorting roads and symmetry.
06:17These were plans for an idealised Enlightenment city.
06:25A city rising from the ashes, as it were.
06:29And there's a real feeling of focusing on it as a capital city in this period...
06:32...in a way that hasn't happened before.
06:35And Morgan is very much buying into that desire to present that.
06:39So the vision of Morgan's map owes much...
06:43...and Wren's designs for an ideal London were never realised.
06:47But Morgan's map...
06:49...by omitting...
06:51...and by widening boulevards.
06:52The whole idea of urban perfection...
07:03...had its origins 200 years earlier...
07:06...in a masterpiece painting of the Renaissance...
07:09...by the Italian artist Piero della Francesca.
07:14It's a pure fantasy...
07:16...entitled The Ideal City.
07:18By the time of the Enlightenment...
07:21...cities all over Europe were trying to put this ideal into practice.
07:25It's beautiful...
07:28...it's classically designed...
07:31...it's very graphic...
07:33...and it's empty.
07:35Very, very noticeably, there are no people.
07:38Is a city with its human element extracted?
07:41A map is a monument...
07:44...to human achievement...
07:46...and a building...
07:48...but it is not a monument to human behaviour.
07:53Morgan's...
08:00Map seller Tim Briars understands well.
08:03Well, in a strange way...
08:05...having a map shop in central London...
08:07...people often do...
08:09...and I think that the maps of London...
08:10...that were being sold...
08:12...by map sellers...
08:14...such as Wilde...
08:16...or Reynolds...
08:18...or Mog...
08:20...would have been printed in huge numbers...
08:22...frequently revised...
08:24...sold in various formats...
08:26...a slip case or cloth covers...
08:28...and at different prices...
08:29...to suit different needs, tastes...
08:30...or different pockets.
08:33Morgan's sanitised map...
08:35...became the iconic image of London...
08:37...that ran like a vein...
08:39...through the heart of the city.
08:42But Morgan didn't share in the map's success.
08:44Map makers...
08:46...produced lots and lots of London maps...
08:48...and of course...
08:49...all the smaller tourists...
08:51...the pocket mapped year after year...
08:53...so there are map makers making money...
08:55...out of the Morgan map...
08:56...but not Morgan.
08:57...is that he never made another map...
09:00...only in his thirties...
09:02...he sold the plates of his wonderful work...
09:04...to another publisher...
09:06...and was never...
09:07...a casualty...
09:09...like many...
09:10...poverty...
09:11...almost blind through age.
09:13Thomas Jefferies...
09:15...who ends up...
09:16...with the Morgan plates...
09:18...goes bankrupt in 1766...
09:20...you know...
09:21...for a lifetime of endeavour...
09:23...and these men were...
09:25...amongst the best geographers of their time.
09:26The costs of map making...
09:27...but map makers soon discovered...
09:28...that the simple act of colouring...
09:29...made a map both...
09:30...more desirable...
09:31...and more profitable.
09:33Here we've got...
09:35...two examples...
09:36...which is black and white...
09:37...as it was originally published...
09:38...and one which has been...
09:39...coloured for the publisher...
09:40...in the 16th century...
09:41...and the purchaser...
09:42...would have paid a premium...
09:43...for the coloured example...
09:44...and problems...
09:45...if you look at the...
09:46...brack and white image...
09:47...you can see...
09:48...the black and white image...
09:49...you can see...
09:50...a lot more of the engraved detail...
09:51...these very strong colours...
09:52...which were being used...
09:53...by the colourists...
09:54...in the 16th century...
09:55...actually blot out...
09:56...some of the engraved detail...
09:57...although they do make...
09:58...a very striking...
09:59...visual image...
10:00...a map which was...
10:01...coloured at the time...
10:02...which was coloured...
10:03...would have been coloured for the publisher...
10:07...by a professional map colourist...
10:08...and the purchaser...
10:09...paid Hansenium...
10:10...for the coloured example...
10:11This beautifully coloured edition...
10:12...of Morgan's map...
10:13...was produced in 19TS...
10:14...1940.
10:15visual image. A map which was coloured at the time would have been coloured for the
10:21publisher by a professional map colourist, and the purchase paid Hansenium for the coloured
10:26example. This beautifully coloured edition of Morgan's map was produced in 1903 in the
10:34map shop in Legacy, and of Morgan's unique achievement in creating the first complete
10:40survey of the whole of London.
10:46In the 1740s, London had outgrown Morgan's map, banding at an extraordinary rate. The
10:55population had almost doubled in the previous 50 years to masterpiece map. It would be the
11:00biggest project of his life, to create the most beautiful and most detailed map of London
11:05the world had ever seen, and to pursue an unusual political agenda.
11:13Completed in 1746, printed on no less than 24 separate sheets, it measured a departure from
11:20Morgan. This, stripped bare, super-rational, the ultimate enlightenment map. Roque was a
11:30French émigré, who permanently moved to London. But as use of French style, the map's whole
11:36purpose was to send a signal, France.
11:40It was demonstrated also that, with such a big city, Britain was also a bigger place than
11:48France. It had more colonies, it had more commerce, and in fact, the cartouche demonstrates
11:53this perfectly. It shows all corners of the world paying tribute to London and bringing
11:59in their wares. And another thing that helps to convey this, and perhaps this hasn't just
12:04exquisitely, it's with a persuasion, with a propaganda. The two are linked together and
12:10justify the cop, and you get it all on one map. At peace.
12:15By the middle of the 18th century, what you have is a genuine transition from what people
12:27regarded as a medieval city, to perhaps the beginnings of a modern city, and the beginnings
12:32of the modern London that we reckon. Buildings, the great exchange is being built in this period.
12:36And as society, you're also starting to see development. So the growth of green spaces
12:42for people to walk in. This is the era of sociability, the growth of places where people go just to
12:48relax.
12:50The abiding is one of a serenity.
12:58This is London. In mid-afternoon, you can see the shadows on the trees are all pointing
13:04to the east. The sun is in the west. It is tea time. This is wealthy London. The London
13:09of privilege and taste. These are the buyers of the map, and it is a London reflected in
13:15their image.
13:17Roke's map shows the perfect Enlightenment city. It's beautiful. It's clinical and controlled.
13:28It imposes order. And it gives all the appearance of objective truth.
13:34Roke's map would be to somehow capture and contextualise.
13:41Roke's map was offering a very different truth. By revealing what Roke left out. The chaotic
13:55reality of city life.
13:57No-one actually knew 18th century London better than Hogarth. And you get the feeling, looking
14:07at the paintings and especially the printmill, all hell broke loose.
14:10all hell broke loose.
14:18In Hogarthing, night,
14:20Roke's house is featured
14:22next to the notorious pub
14:24The Rummer.
14:26So Roke and Hogarth
14:28inhabited the same London.
14:34What Hogarth brings together in one image
14:36is mind-boggling and your eye
14:38doesn't know where to rest.
14:40Half the time you're looking
14:42up and around, seeing that
14:44there's a character pouring
14:46a pot of urine
14:48down from a great height,
14:50bouncing off the building
14:52and splashing onto the people in the street.
14:54There are bodies
14:56everywhere, there are people screaming
14:58and according to Hogarth, this just sort of
15:00went on all night long, so
15:02I don't think anybody got any sleep.
15:04The fact that Roke's
15:08this image of the crazy street
15:10by Hogarth, hilarious really
15:12because nothing
15:14could be more different
15:16than the Hogarthian view
15:18of everyone going mad in the metropolis
15:20and Roke.
15:24He's trying very, very hard
15:26to pretend
15:28that London is orderly,
15:30that London actually can
15:32be systematised
15:34and then you go back to Hogarth
15:36and realise that, no actually
15:38because the thing about London
15:40is people
15:42and people just make it
15:44into a madhouse.
15:46The desire to impose
15:48science onto something
15:50and to make it scientific
15:52which may not be able
15:54necessarily to be scientific
15:56because of the human element.
16:10250 years after Roke,
16:12it's precisely that human element
16:14revels in.
16:16His 2008 city map shows
16:20London as an island,
16:22a wry joke on the
16:24capital's obsession with itself.
16:30Walter's map brings the story
16:32full circle by glorying
16:34in the human chaos that
16:36Morgan and Roke worked so hard
16:38to disguise.
16:40at one level
16:42and then there's
16:44another side to the map.
16:50Walter reveals human city life,
16:52warts and all.
16:54A range of detail,
16:56random facts mixed with
16:58personal moments,
17:00are all part of the new map's point
17:02and an eye.
17:04There's the downright obscure.
17:06Here's where Kate Bush
17:08attended a convent in Hampstead.
17:10And then there's the
17:12utterly personal in these.
17:16We all know that maps are subjective
17:18but I think he carries subjectivity
17:20to a degree which is rare in map making
17:22actually indicating where he was,
17:24episodes that nearly happened to him
17:26or actually did happen to him.
17:28It is a marvellous amalgam
17:30of bits and pieces,
17:32solid information
17:34and the autobiographical.
17:38Like Hogarth's paintings,
17:40pubs pepper Stephen
17:42Walter's map
17:44from one end of the city
17:46to the other.
17:48He figured out
17:50and mapped
17:52and at the time
17:54of Roke and others
17:56there was a...
17:58You know, ten years ago
18:00I was making a lot of observational drawings
18:04and photographs
18:06and maps of these signs and symbols.
18:10I are in the jokes.
18:12Stephen Walter's map is at heart
18:14a celebration of London.
18:16Chuck and Morgan.
18:18Morgan.
18:20Morgan is celebrating a London
18:22that is well ordered.
18:24It is as it should be.
18:26With Roke
18:28and is being portrayed
18:30in a rather spiteful way almost.
18:32Satirical way.
18:34And I think that in that way
18:36Stephen Walter's is also celebrating London.
18:38But it's a London
18:40which thrives on its rather anarchic nature.
18:44And it is importantly disregards.
18:56And it's, if you like, dare one say it,
19:00the modern established view.
19:04In the end,
19:10all city maps, however beautiful,
19:12however much they pose
19:14two-dimensional order
19:16on the chaos that is urban life.
19:24To explore the new world
19:26of digital mapping
19:28and to find out more about
19:30the British Library Map Exhibition,
19:32www.be.co.uk
19:34slash beautyofmaps
19:44And the beauty of maps continues tomorrow
19:46at half past DCHD.
19:48And coming up next tonight,
19:50it's Mad Men.