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

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Mysterious and beautiful,
these rarely seen treasures

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

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

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

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

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to produce something of huge beauty.

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Our love affair with
maps is old as civilisation itself.

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

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Maps delight, they unsettle,
they reveal deep truths

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

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

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

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

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Three visions of a changing
urban landscape spanning 300 years.

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Three works of art,
beauty and science.

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But they also serve another purpose.

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A map orders a city,

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

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It makes it all of those
things that,

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

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

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

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to impose visual order
on the chaos of city life.

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

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

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London was devastated by this.

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Obviously, where do you start

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when your entire heart
has been cut out?

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London had to be rebuilt,
almost from scratch,

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in the largest construction
process Britain had ever seen.

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Out of the ashes would rise
a new city,

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and a new city needed a new map.

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

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it's easier to control and organise.

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

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then perhaps you can create it.

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

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The survey alone
was on an unprecedented scale.

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It took six years to complete,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The map's size alone
expressed pride and confidence.

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Made up of 16 separate sheets,

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measuring a mighty eight feet
by five, and embodying

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

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

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is extremely important because,

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

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This was the first time
that the entire city

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

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They wanted, through this map,

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

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and was equal to anybody
and better than most.

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With its beautiful panorama
of the city along the bottom,

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with its decorative images
of the King

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and of the
great buildings of the city,

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it looks grand and ordered,
objective and true.

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

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

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

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There is not a hint of any disorder.

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

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

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London was the fastest
growing city in Europe,

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and with expansion came growing
problems of poverty and crime.

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

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not one appears
on Morgan's supposedly accurate map.

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The whole image has been sanitised.

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If you look at
the mapping of the East End,

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you will see
none of the overcrowding,

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none of the insanitary conditions,

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that really typified the East End
at that time.

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

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a picture of total elegance.

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

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Generally, you will get
an impression of order

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which didn't really
correspond with the reality.

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

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

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

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In order to convey this impression
with still greater force,

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the map-makers have included
certain buildings,

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

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

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and showed it on the map
as a completed building.

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

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and, in the end,
looked very different

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

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

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

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shown on these original
engravings made after the fire.

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All grid patterns, radiating roads
and symmetry.

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These were plans for an
idealised Enlightenment city.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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But Morgan's map keeps
their spirit and style alive

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

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and by widening boulevards.

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

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

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It's a pure fantasy
entitled the Ideal City.

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

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It's beautiful,
it's classically designed,

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it's very graphic and it's empty.

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Very, very noticeably,
there are no people.

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There's no sewage, no dirt,

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

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A map is a city
with its human element extracted.

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A map is a monument to human
achievement and building,

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but it is not a monument
to human behaviour.

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

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but it proved hugely popular.

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

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

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

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

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I think that the maps of London
that were being sold

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by map sellers
such as Wild or Reynolds or Mogg

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

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

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

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

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Morgan's sanitised map
became the iconic image of London

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

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

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London map makers produced

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

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

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

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

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

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

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and was never heard of again.

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

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

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

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

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

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The costs of map-making were huge.

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The survey involved teams
of people for years.

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

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

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made a map both more desirable
and more profitable.

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

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This is Tivoli in Italy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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although they do make
a very striking visual image.

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

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by a professional map colourist,

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and the purchasers paid handsomely
for their services.

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

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you paid a real premium
for the coloured example.

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This beautifully coloured
edition of Morgan's map

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

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

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

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

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The city was expanding
at an extraordinary rate.

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The population had almost
doubled in the previous 50 years.

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London needed a new masterpiece map.

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Map-maker John Rocque
set out to make it.

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It would be the biggest
project of his life -

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

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and to pursue an
unusual political agenda.

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

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

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

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Gone were the pictures of
kings and images of buildings.

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This was new-style
French map-making.

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

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Rocque was a French emigre
who permanently moved to London.

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

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The map's whole purpose was to
send a signal

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

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It was made during the war
of the Austrian succession

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

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London stood as a symbol
for the British Empire

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

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Britain was also a
bigger place than France.

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It had more colonies,
it had more commerce.

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In fact, the cartouche
demonstrates this perfectly.

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It shows all corners of the world
paying tribute to London

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and bringing in their wares.

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

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is the sheer quality
of the engraving.

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

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that helps with the persuasion,
with the propaganda.

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The two are linked together
and justify the cost.

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And you get it all on one map.

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I think it is an
extremely seductive piece.

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

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

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and the beginnings of the
modern London that we recognise.

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

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the great exchange is being
built in this period.

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

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

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

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

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This is London in mid-afternoon.

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

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

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This is aristocratic London,

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wealthy London,
the London of privilege and taste.

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

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Rocque's map shows the
perfect Enlightenment city.

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

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It imposes order

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and it gives all the appearance
of objective truth.

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The whole objective
behind creating a map

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would be to somehow capture
and contextualise and impose order

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

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

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But while Rocque was busy imposing
order, his contemporary -

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the painter William Hogarth -
was offering a very different truth

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by revealing what Rocque left out.

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The chaotic reality of city life.

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

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You get the feeling,

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looking at the paintings
and the prints that he made,

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that he was fascinated.

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And not just during the day, either.

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He realised that although London
was pretty damn busy then

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and very, very noisy,

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

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

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next to the notorious pub
the Rummer.

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

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But you'd never guess it.

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

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Your eye doesn't know where to rest.

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Half the time
you're looking up and around

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

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down from a great height,
bouncing off the building

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and splashing onto
people in the street.

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

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I don't think anybody got any sleep.

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The fact that Rocque's house appears

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

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because nothing could be more
different than the Hogarthian view

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of everyone going mad
in the metropolis, and Rocque.

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

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and that London can be systematised

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

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

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

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It's the desire to impose science
onto something

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

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to be scientific
because of the human element.

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250 years after Rocque,
it is precisely that human element

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that artist Steven Walter
revels in.

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His 2008 city map shows London
as an island -

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

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Walter's map brings the story
full circle,

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by glorying in the human chaos

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that Morgan and Rocque
worked so hard to disguise.

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

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

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And then there's another side
to the map.

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Walter reveals human city life,
warts and all.

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The subversive,
the sheer range of detail,

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random facts mixed
with personal moments,

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are all part of the new map's point.

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Walter has conventional locations
like the London Eye.

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There's the downright obscure -

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

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And then there's
the utterly personal.

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Here in East Ham is his nan's house

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where he made depressing
trips on Sundays.

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We know that maps are subjective,

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

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

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

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and the autobiographical.

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

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from one end of the city
to the other.

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This Islington pub is on the map.

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And the map is in the pub.

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With the artist.

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I think this is a certain time
in human history,

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where so much is already figured out
and mapped,

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and at the time of Rocque and others,

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there was still a possibility
to physically pioneer.

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

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and photos of landscape

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

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I tended to always work over
these compositions

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to produce these
signs and symbols, often abstract.

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00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:46,440
And so I decided to build images
and that led me on to building maps

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00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:48,560
of these signs and symbols.

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00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,400
Despite the satire and the jokes,

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00:26:56,400 --> 00:27:00,000
Steven Walter's map is, at heart,
a celebration of London.

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00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:03,320
Just like the maps of Rocque
and Morgan.

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00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:13,440
Morgan is celebrating a London that's
well-ordered, it is as it should be.

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

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

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

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

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00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:44,120
And it is a London that almost
defiantly disregards standards.

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It's, if you like,

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00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:54,280
dare one say it,
the modern established view.

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00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:00,920
In the end, all city maps,

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

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00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:08,680
take on the impossible

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00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:14,160
when they try to impose
two dimensional order
on the chaos that is urban life.

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

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00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:30,880
new world of digital mapping,
go to bbc.co.uk/beautyofmaps