Admire Those Amazing Little Mazes On Local and Distant Stations in London: Where, Why, What Do They Mean?

 

I was puzzled by the little Labyrinth on the wall at ground level near the entrance to Northwick Park station in North London. I asked the man serving at the kiosk, "Do you know what this little design means?" He simply shrugged and raised his hands in the air. "It's an artwork."

 Now I can explain it, to local people, or foreign visitors. I feel really pleased with myself. I am a guide, a teacher. I can write about it in my blog. I can put it on Pinterest. I can add it on Google maps.  

I only recently,  yesterday, discovered that the same artist has designed different labyrinths for stations. All over London. 

The artist is Mark Wallinger.  Mark my words, his name is easy to remember. Mark the wall. Wall injured. Or, if you prefer a positive memory aid, wall enjoy. Or wall ingenius. Mark Willinger. 

Why bother to remember his name? Because you will see his little mazes on the walls of railway stations all over London, the station you depart from and the station you arrive at. 

For years I had walked past the little maze on the wall at Northwick Park station and wondered, what is that doing here? What has a maze got to do with this area? The answer is, nothing. The mazes are all over London. Each station has its own maze and each one is unique and charming.

Mark's Labyrinth at Heathrow. Picture from Wikimedia.

Where might you visit? Hyde Park Corner.

Hyde Park Corner. Simple, neat design.

What does it all mean? Is the underground a maze to you? Once you have found the entrance and the destination, all becomes clear. It is really neat, and compact. 

One maze on its own, like one station on its own, might not be particularly useful, not connected with anything else. But once you have the whole picture of linked mazes and stations, you have a satisfying system.

Yes, those little mazes remind you that the underground network is a maze at first sight. However, it is logical. Once you have found the entrance and the destination, you feel in control and satisfied. Problem solved.

First I looked at them all in grid fashion on the Wikimedia page. I tried to pick out famous stations, central stations I might visit. Heathrow, Victoria, Hyde Park Corner.  

Then I looked at the patterns and tried to pick out contrasting styles. Simple maze. Contrast with complicated maze. Central symbolic shape like a hard diamond. Central symbolic shape like a curved flower. Rigid shape of the whole. Swirly shape of the whole, curved like a map of your brain. 

Finally, I found that the best way to compare them is to go to wikimedia, click on one of the pictures, select more details, then click on the left or right arrows to go through each one individually, reading the captions.

I found that the whole set were designed to celebrate 150 years of the London underground. The designs are grouped under names such as (alphabetically): 

American Indian. 

Chamfered (Chalfont & Latimer, West Acton). 

East (Highgate, Manor House, St John's Wood, Totteridge and Whetstone). 

Emboss (Angel, Arnos Grove, Euston Square). 

Medieval (Archway, Barbican, Bounds Green, High Barnet). 

Native American (Farringdon, Southgate).  

Opposed (Moorgate, Swiss Cottage, West Finchley). 

Organic (Ealing Common, Great Portland Street, Wood Green). 

The Square family (Ealing Broadway, Finchley Central, Finchley Road, Old Street, Turnpike East, Woodside Park). 

Turf (Cockfosters, East Finchley, Kentish Town, Tufnell Park). 

The West. Woodcut (Mill Hill East, Oakwood station).

My favourite designs one by one, including popular places you and I might visit on our next trip to central London:

Leicester Square

High Street Kensington. Dead white circle centre.

Green Park

Bayswater

Now my favourites from stations which you and I are unlikely to visit unless we live or work there:

Hatton Cross. I like the six petal flower centre.

Most are displayed against red brick (a London feature, from London's red clay) or white tiles. I like the green background of the artwork on Wimbledon Park station.

Useful Websites

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Labyrinth_(Art_on_the_Underground)#/media/File:Mark_Wallinger_Labyrinth_269_-_Heathrow_Terminals_1,_2,_3.

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2020/10/delightful-decorations-on-london.html

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Labyrinth_(Art_on_the_Underground)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10622805/Secrets-Victoria-Line-station-tiled-mura

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_on_the_Underground

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_London_Underground_stations

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Travel Teaches You The Meaning Of Life And Why You And Others Travel

Problems
Why do people travel?

1 To learn about the world.
2 To find the meaning of life.
3 To go to a place they have always yearned to see.
4 To escape from danger.
5 Thrill-seeking, excitement, end of boredom.
6 To join a joyful crowd, experience an event.
7 To find the answer to a problem.
8 To find their ancestors or a lost love they are seeking.
9 For romance which eluded them at home.
10 To earn more money. (For yourself, or your family, or your community, or to save somebody who is sick.)

When I go to Toastmasters, the opening speech by any speaker is often the Ice-breaker, when they tell their life story. Sometimes a speaker postpones their icebreaker for as long as two years.

Why? They say they were too shy. They lacked confidence. It was too challenging.

They don't want to admit to themselves or others about their past failures. They don't know how to recall the past without upsetting themselves.

A Chinese Story
Once, a Chinese girl told us her life story - in a table topic, an impromptu speech, which she later expanded into an Icebreaker. When first speaking to her I had admired her for her courage in taking the big journey from rural China to Singapore / Hong Kong at an early age. She studied relentlessly, studied at night, took two jobs, learned two new languages.

I was surprised to find out that hers was partly an escape story. Her parents were separated and hostile to each other. This made her unhappy at home, yo-yo-ing between the two. She went elsewhere to have education and job prospects. She dreamed of a boyfriend and marriage. Her qualifications and jobs and income and accommodation were gradually improving.

She has two motives. One is escape from warring family. The second is build a secure future.

An Indian Story
At another event, I heard an Indian boy's story. He was smartly dressed in a shirt and tie and business suit and worked in a finance company. He lived in a small village with an extended family. His family and the neighbours all worked day and night and pooled their savings to send him to school and then college so he could get a job overseas either from a scholarship or taking the cheapest form of transport and taking every skilled or unskilled job available and paying his way at each step.

The understanding was that he would pay back to the community, sending money from his salary to his family and those who had funded his education and travel. He would also pay for one or two or three children from his home area to go to school and college.

The second time I heard this story, I thought, I've met this young man before. But I hadn't. It wasn't a unique story. If you think you have met the same young man as the first one I met, or second one I met, probably not.

You eventually find that stories you hear form a pattern. They are not necesaarily copied from each other. They are simply patterns of behaviour. Some people are born poor, others are born rich. You meet some of both.

Some are worn down and commit suicide. Others persist and become famous for their success, like Jack Ma, Chinese founder of Ali Baba.

English And Asian Attitudes
Unlike people in England, who sneer at financiers and those who want to earn money, and wearing a suit and tie, he was very proud to be employed and earn a good salary. he said his dream has been to buy his mother a house, and he had achieved that. Now he was still working non-stop, day, evening, overtime, whatever was pleasing to his employers, whatever would keep his job and earn him promotion. Whatever would enable him to get another job elsewhere. Whatever skills he would learn to run his own company.

He has three or four motives. Fulfil the dreams of his family. Help his family. Repay debts. Start a better life.

Conclusion
Draw your own conclusion about others and yourself. I presume you reach the same conclusion that I reach. But when you ask what people learn from a story, the answers you hear are surprisingly divergent.

Why are you travelling? Are you travelling to get away from something or get to something?

Jews After WWII
After WWII, escapting Jews travelled to get away from the dangerous places and regimes and memories they left behind. Some travelled to the yearned for promised land of Israel. Others travlled as far as possble to South America or Australia.

Some tried to escape and hide their past in a totally new environment. They changed religion. They became buddhist, atheist, humanist. I met a Jehovah's witness in Poland who said he or his co-religionists might have been descended from Jews, but for safety nobody ever admitted it, and rarely discussed it, except with a dying grandparent.

Advantages Of Travel
Some went to a Communist country with no religion. Some married somebody from Asia, such as an a Japanese or Chinese or Vietnamese person who had no knowledge or or hostility towards Jews. I met a man who had married an Asian girl. I eventually learned about his grandparent's past. His mother had kept it from him, and encouraged him to travel to Asia and study Asian languages. Her wish was fulfilled. He had a new life.

Jews in WWII, the Kindertransport, have something in common with modern day Chinese and Indian migrants. You admire their enterprise and determination.

Efforts At Assimilation
It can be quite a surprise to learn the initial difficulties they faced. When you meet somebody who seems confident and successful, their past can be a surprise. I have often been taken aback on learning how they started in a dormitory, then it took five or ten years of study and working to learn a new language, get an education, a shared university room or flat, a new skill, a job, a better paid job, a well paid job, their own room, their own flat, owning a flat.

They forgot the past and kept quiet about it, concentrated on their future. If you give them the opportunity to talk, and listen sympathetically, they will tell you.

Revelations - If You Ask
The bouncy, smiling, confident, detmined youg girl starts blinking and licking her lips and sighing as she tells you her past. The suave, loud, or quiet, young man, hesistates, or stammers, when he tells you about his past.

Some tried to hide their poor origins and early suffering. They enthuse about their new contry. Others try preserve what they had lost. Others find a balance. Listen and learn.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Please share links to this post.