Very Expensive Maps

John Tauranac: “I seldom think macroscopically; I think microscopically.”


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Manhattan writer and cartographer John Tauranac on his first maps of Midtown’s pedestrian passages, a public debate with Massimo Vignelli (“His geography was egregious”), working at a very different MTA (they used to have an aesthetics committee?), the “no improvements” made to the subway map since he chaired the 1979 MTA map committee, guiding Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s helicopter photo surveys of Manhattan, walking every block and learning Illustrator to create his acclaimed 176-page Manhattan tourist guide, how to make a usable bus map, New York’s vanished map stores, and a longitudinal view of the business: “plus ça change, plus c'est la même bull████.” See his work at johntauranac.com

  • Tauranac Maps
  • Manhattan Block By Block: A Street Atlas
  • Bauhaus vs. Beaux-Arts
  • Vignelli’s 1972 NYC subway map
  • Tauranac’s 1979 NYC subway map
  • The 2023 NYC subway map
  • Nobu Siraisi
  • John explains his subway map design choices
  • Yann Arthus-Bertrand
  • DeLorme Maps
  • Alex McPhee’s giant maps of Canada
  • ...more
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