All language subtitles for BBC.The.Beauty.of.Maps.2of4.City.Maps.Order.Out.of.Chaos.1080i.HDTV.x264.AC3

London's British Library is home
to a staggering 4.5 million maps.

Mysterious and beautiful,
these rarely seen treasures

are much more than two dimensional
depictions of a physical world.

A map is definitely by far
the best synthesis of...topography -

the geography of a place - together
with its history, and art as well.

So, you've got great themes
all combining in one

to produce something of huge beauty.

Our love affair with
maps is old as civilisation itself.

Each map tells its own story
and hides its own secrets.

Maps delight, they unsettle,
they reveal deep truths

not just about where we come from,
but about who we are.

A map is a thing of beauty, it's a
place where you express the cosmos,

you try and bring together
the whole view of the world,
so you can understand it.

Among the British Library's
treasures are three
remarkable maps of London.

Three visions of a changing
urban landscape spanning 300 years.

Three works of art,
beauty and science.

But they also serve another purpose.

A map orders a city,

it makes it navigable, it makes it
rational, it makes it clean.

It makes it all of those
things that,

in the 17th and 18th century,
it's not.

Beneath their surface,
they distort the truth,
hide secrets and tell lies.

This is the story of how map-makers
have exploited art, science
and clinical precision

to impose visual order
on the chaos of city life.

In September 1666,
the Great Fire destroyed almost
all of the old city of London.

400 streets, 600 churches
and 14,000 homes were gone.

London was devastated by this.

Obviously, where do you start

when your entire heart
has been cut out?

London had to be rebuilt,
almost from scratch,

in the largest construction
process Britain had ever seen.

Out of the ashes would rise
a new city,

and a new city needed a new map.

If you can see the city and
understand it and know what is there,

it's easier to control and organise.

If you can envision the
city you would like it to be,

then perhaps you can create it.

In the 1670s,
map-maker William Morgan
set out to create that new map.

The survey alone
was on an unprecedented scale.

It took six years to complete,

with Morgan's team of surveyors
measuring every London street.

For sheer ambition, beauty and cost,
his groundbreaking, masterpiece map,

completed in 1682, was the
first truly modern map of London.

Londoners are going to be looking
to a London which offers them hope,

which offers them a sense of promise
and also a sense of pride as well.

And certainly Morgan's map
embodies this type of pride.

The map's size alone
expressed pride and confidence.

Made up of 16 separate sheets,

measuring a mighty eight feet
by five, and embodying

all the latest thinking of the new
scientific era of the Enlightenment.

The scientific aspect of the map,
or the appearance of science,

is extremely important because,

up to that date, England had not
really produced a map of this nature.

This was the first time
that the entire city

had ever been accurately surveyed,
measured and drawn to scale.

They wanted, through this map,

to show that London had emerged from
the dark days of the Fire of London

and was equal to anybody
and better than most.

With its beautiful panorama
of the city along the bottom,

with its decorative images
of the King

and of the
great buildings of the city,

it looks grand and ordered,
objective and true.

But delve beneath the surface
and a very different story emerges.

Inside the city, things are tidied
up, to convey the impression

that it is well-policed, it is
well-ordered, it is as it should be.

There is not a hint of any disorder.

I believe there is not any depiction
in the map, for instance,

of any of the prisons that we know
were in the city, like Newgate.

London was the fastest
growing city in Europe,

and with expansion came growing
problems of poverty and crime.

But of the hundreds of slums,
prisons and workhouses
that peppered the city,

not one appears
on Morgan's supposedly accurate map.

The whole image has been sanitised.

If you look at
the mapping of the East End,

you will see
none of the overcrowding,

none of the insanitary conditions,

that really typified the East End
at that time.

Similarly, if you look
in the West End, you will see

a picture of total elegance.

You will see in St James' Park
deer grazing very happily.

Generally, you will get
an impression of order

which didn't really
correspond with the reality.

But then again that's map-making. You
want to put your best foot forward.

So Morgan's aim is to create an
impression of order and beauty.

But he doesn't only do it
by leaving things out.

In order to convey this impression
with still greater force,

the map-makers have included
certain buildings,

most notably St Paul's Cathedral,
which hadn't yet been rebuilt.

Morgan copied Christopher Wren's
original design for St Paul's,

and showed it on the map
as a completed building.

The real St Paul's would not be
finished for another 25 years

and, in the end,
looked very different

with a larger dome, a shorter nave
and fewer windows.

So Morgan's map enshrines a
fantasy building that never was.

In fact, Wren, the greatest British
architect of his day, had drawn
up plans for the whole of London,

shown on these original
engravings made after the fire.

All grid patterns, radiating roads
and symmetry.

These were plans for an
idealised Enlightenment city.

There's a desire to glorify
London as a monarchical capital,

to depict it as this city
rising from the ashes as it were.

There's a real feeling of focusing
on it as a capital city

in this period in a way
that hasn't happened before.

Morgan is very much buying in
to that desire to present
that vision of London.

So the vision of Morgan's map
owes much to Wren.

In the end, Wren's designs for an
ideal London were never realised.

But Morgan's map keeps
their spirit and style alive

by including St Paul's,
by omitting prisons and dark alleys

and by widening boulevards.

The whole idea of urban perfection
had its origins 200 years earlier

in a masterpiece painting
of the Renaissance by the Italian
artist Piero della Francesca.

It's a pure fantasy
entitled the Ideal City.

By the time of the Enlightenment,
cities all over Europe were trying
to put this ideal into practice.

It's beautiful,
it's classically designed,

it's very graphic and it's empty.

Very, very noticeably,
there are no people.

There's no sewage, no dirt,

and that says an awful lot about
what people regard as being problems
in their cities.

A map is a city
with its human element extracted.

A map is a monument to human
achievement and building,

but it is not a monument
to human behaviour.

Morgan's cleaned-up vision
of urban perfection may have
been economical with the truth,

but it proved hugely popular.

For the next 60 years,
every new map of London
was based on his original,

stimulating a map trade
that modern-day map seller
Tim Bryers understands well.

In a strange way, having a map shop
in central London, people often come
in and ask me for maps of London.

And I can't imagine that it was
too different from my predecessors.

I think that the maps of London
that were being sold

by map sellers
such as Wild or Reynolds or Mogg

would have been printed in huge
numbers, frequently revised,
sold in various formats,

either as a single sheet on paper
uncoloured, perhaps coloured,
perhaps the deluxe version -

coloured laid down on linen, folding
into a slip case or cloth covers,

and at different prices
to suit different needs, tastes
or different pockets.

Morgan's sanitised map
became the iconic image of London

sold in the network of map shops
that ran like a vein
through the heart of the city.

But Morgan didn't share
in the map's success.

London map makers produced

lots and lots of London maps and by
and large they did them very well.

And, of course, all the smaller
London maps - maps produced
for tourists, pocket maps -

were all based on the Morgan map
for year after year.

So map makers made money out of
the Morgan map, but not Morgan.

All we know of Morgan's fate is
that he never made another map.

Only in his 30s,
he sold the plates of his
wonderful work to another publisher

and was never heard of again.

A casualty,
like many of his contemporaries,
in the perilous world of map-making.

His contemporary, Emanuel Bowen,
dies in poverty,
almost blind through age.

Thomas Jefferies who ends up with the
Morgan plates goes bankrupt in 1766.

His net assets in his will amount
to £20 for a lifetime of endeavour.

And these men were amongst the
best geographers of their time.

The costs of map-making were huge.

The survey involved teams
of people for years.

Drawing and engraving each plate
required scores of skilled
artisans and costly materials.

But map-makers soon discovered
that the simple act of colouring

made a map both more desirable
and more profitable.

Here we've got two examples
of exactly the same plate.

This is Tivoli in Italy.

One which is black and white
as it was originally published,

and one which has been coloured for
the publisher in the 16th century.

And the purchaser would have paid
a premium for the coloured example.

In some ways, the colour
actually creates its own problems.

On the black and white image, you see
a lot more of the engraved detail.

These very strong colours, which
were being used by the colourists

in the 16th century, actually blot
out some of the engraved detail,

although they do make
a very striking visual image.

A map coloured at the time would have
been coloured for the publisher

by a professional map colourist,

and the purchasers paid handsomely
for their services.

It wasn't a choice of going in
and saying, "Well, I'd like this
black and white, or with colour,"

you paid a real premium
for the coloured example.

This beautifully coloured
edition of Morgan's map

was produced in 1903 and is for
sale today in a London map shop.

It's a mark of the
map's enduring legacy

and of Morgan's unique achievement
in creating the first complete
survey of the whole of London.

But by the 1740s,
London had outgrown Morgan's map.

The city was expanding
at an extraordinary rate.

The population had almost
doubled in the previous 50 years.

London needed a new masterpiece map.

Map-maker John Rocque
set out to make it.

It would be the biggest
project of his life -

to create the most beautiful
and most detailed map of London
the world had ever seen,

and to pursue an
unusual political agenda.

Completed in 1746, printed on
no less than 24 separate sheets,

it measured a massive
13 feet by 8 - nearly twice
the length of Morgan's map.

In style too, it was
a radical departure from Morgan.

Gone were the pictures of
kings and images of buildings.

This was new-style
French map-making.

Stripped bare, super-rational -
the ultimate Enlightenment map.

Rocque was a French emigre
who permanently moved to London.

But his use of French style
was not just about aesthetics.

The map's whole purpose was to
send a signal

to Britain's greatest commercial
and military rival - France.

It was made during the war
of the Austrian succession

and the whole purpose of the map
was to demonstrate conclusively
that London was bigger than Paris.

London stood as a symbol
for the British Empire

and they wanted to demonstrate
also that, with such a big city,

Britain was also a
bigger place than France.

It had more colonies,
it had more commerce.

In fact, the cartouche
demonstrates this perfectly.

It shows all corners of the world
paying tribute to London

and bringing in their wares.

And another thing that helps to
convey this, and perhaps this hasn't
been sufficiently emphasised,

is the sheer quality
of the engraving.

It is just exquisitely done
and, again, it is the art

that helps with the persuasion,
with the propaganda.

The two are linked together
and justify the cost.

And you get it all on one map.

I think it is an
extremely seductive piece.

By the middle of the 18th century,
what you have
is a genuine transition

from what people regarded
as a medieval city to perhaps
the beginnings of a modern city,

and the beginnings of the
modern London that we recognise.

A lot of the new thoroughfares
have been built, the churches,
the great buildings,

the great exchange is being
built in this period.

And, as society, you're also
starting to see development,

so the growth of green spaces
for people to walk in.

This is the era of sociability -
the growth of places where
people go just to relax.

The abiding impression of the
Rocque map is one of serenity.

This is London in mid-afternoon.

You can see the shadows on the trees
are all pointing to the east,

the sun is in the west,
it is tea-time on a summer's day.

This is aristocratic London,

wealthy London,
the London of privilege and taste.

These are the buyers of the map
and it is a London
reflected in their image.

Rocque's map shows the
perfect Enlightenment city.

It's beautiful,
it's clinical and controlled.

It imposes order

and it gives all the appearance
of objective truth.

The whole objective
behind creating a map

would be to somehow capture
and contextualise and impose order

on a city which is always moving,
always growing, always changing,

which is falling apart
as it's burgeoning at the same time.

But while Rocque was busy imposing
order, his contemporary -

the painter William Hogarth -
was offering a very different truth

by revealing what Rocque left out.

The chaotic reality of city life.

No-one actually knew 18th-century
London better than Hogarth.

You get the feeling,

looking at the paintings
and the prints that he made,

that he was fascinated.

And not just during the day, either.

He realised that although London
was pretty damn busy then

and very, very noisy,

when it came to the night time, when
darkness fell, all hell broke loose.

In Hogarth's famous engraving,
Night, Rocque's house is featured,

next to the notorious pub
the Rummer.

So Rocque and Hogarth inhabited
the same London at the same time.

But you'd never guess it.

What Hogarth brings together in one
image is absolutely mind-boggling.

Your eye doesn't know where to rest.

Half the time
you're looking up and around

seeing that there's a character
pouring a pot of urine

down from a great height,
bouncing off the building

and splashing onto
people in the street.

There are bodies everywhere,
people screaming, and according to
Hogarth this went on all night long.

I don't think anybody got any sleep.

The fact that Rocque's house appears

in this image of the crazy street
by Hogarth is hilarious really

because nothing could be more
different than the Hogarthian view

of everyone going mad
in the metropolis, and Rocque.

He's trying very hard to pretend
that London is orderly

and that London can be systematised

and then you go back to Hogarth
and realise no, actually.

Because the thing about London
is people, and people just
make it into a mad-house.

Certainly,
the appeal of Rocque's map would be
that it imposes order on chaos.

It's the desire to impose science
onto something

and to make it scientific which may
not be able, necessarily,

to be scientific
because of the human element.

250 years after Rocque,
it is precisely that human element

that artist Steven Walter
revels in.

His 2008 city map shows London
as an island -

a wry joke on the
capital's obsession with itself.

Walter's map brings the story
full circle,

by glorying in the human chaos

that Morgan and Rocque
worked so hard to disguise.

At one level, it's a straight
topographical map of London

with the streets shown,
the main sights shown, the main
physical features shown, parks shown.

And then there's another side
to the map.

Walter reveals human city life,
warts and all.

The subversive,
the sheer range of detail,

random facts mixed
with personal moments,

are all part of the new map's point.

Walter has conventional locations
like the London Eye.

There's the downright obscure -

here's where Kate Bush
attended a convent in Hampstead.

And then there's
the utterly personal.

Here in East Ham is his nan's house

where he made depressing
trips on Sundays.

We know that maps are subjective,

but I think he carries subjectivity
to a degree
which is rare in map-making -

actually indicating where he was,
episodes which nearly happened to
him or actually happened to him.

It is a marvellous amalgam of bits
and pieces - solid information

and the autobiographical.

Like Hogarth's paintings,
pubs pepper Steven Walter's map,

from one end of the city
to the other.

This Islington pub is on the map.

And the map is in the pub.

With the artist.

I think this is a certain time
in human history,

where so much is already figured out
and mapped,

and at the time of Rocque and others,

there was still a possibility
to physically pioneer.

10 years ago, I was making
a lot of observational drawings

and photos of landscape

and taking them into a process of
experimental map-making.

I tended to always work over
these compositions

to produce these
signs and symbols, often abstract.

And so I decided to build images
and that led me on to building maps

of these signs and symbols.

Despite the satire and the jokes,

Steven Walter's map is, at heart,
a celebration of London.

Just like the maps of Rocque
and Morgan.

Morgan is celebrating a London that's
well-ordered, it is as it should be.

With Rocque, it's London
which is bigger than Paris

and is being portrayed in a rather
spiteful way almost, a satirical way.

And I think that, in that way, Steven
Walter's is also celebrating London,

but it's a London which thrives
on its rather anarchic nature.

And it is a London that almost
defiantly disregards standards.

It's, if you like,

dare one say it,
the modern established view.

In the end, all city maps,

however beautiful, however much
they lie or joke or celebrate,

take on the impossible

when they try to impose
two dimensional order
on the chaos that is urban life.

To find out more about the maps
in this series and to explore the

new world of digital mapping,
go to bbc.co.uk/beautyofmaps