Last Watched

"John Rocque"  Sort by

City Maps

   2010    Culture
This is the story of three maps, three 'visions' of London over three centuries. The Morgan Map of 1682 was the first to show the whole of the City of London after the Great Fire of London. In 1746 John Rocque produced at the time the most detailed map ever made of London. Like Morgan's, Rocque's map is all neo-Classical beauty and clinical precision, but the London it represented had become the opposite. In engravings of the time, such as Night, the artist William Hogarth shows a city boiling with vice and corruption. Stephen Walter's contemporary image, The Island, plays with notions of cartographic order and respectability. His extraordinary London map looks at first glance to be just as precise and ordered as his hero Rocque's but, looking closer, it includes 21st century markings such as 'favourite kebab vans' and sites of 'personal heartbreak'.
Series: The Beauty of Maps
The Universe

The Universe

2010  Science
Invisible Worlds

Invisible Worlds

2010  Science
Clarkson Farm Season 2

Clarkson Farm Season 2

2023  Nature
History of the World

History of the World

2012  History
Racism: A History

Racism: A History

2007  Culture
Meet the Romans

Meet the Romans

2012  History