Ok, so it’s not the Olympics – but come on, isn’t it just a little bit exciting to have the pink signs back the network again?
The ubiquities signage that was everywhere for 2012, is now here again for the Rugby World Cup in various places – our favourite point that we’ve spied it at so far is here at Hammersmith, where just for once the flower seller hadn’t completely covered up the Labyrinth – Pink sign AND Labyrinth, double win!
Pink signs are back!
Those lovely people at Art on the Underground have put out a feature length video (26 minutes long) on the whole Labyrinth project with interviews with everyone involved in it, and people that love it. It’s worth a watch if you love your Labyrinths (As we do!)
The Labyrinth book is finally out! Available on the Art/Books publishing website, the blurb that goes with it, states:
Designed by the award-winning studio Rose, Labyrinth: A Journey Through London’s Underground by Mark Wallinger is a compelling record of this extraordinary project. But more than that, it is also a vivid celebration of the London Underground and of London itself. Striking photographs of all the labyrinths in situ reveal the diverse face and fabric of the network and its users, while fascinating ‘I-never-knew-that’ facts about each station and their surrounds bring surprising perspectives to the daily commute.
It’s been a while coming, but finally, after almost exactly 16 months since the first one appeared at St. James’s Park, the last of the Labyrinths was installed this week at Perivale.
We needed to get Acton Town, North Ealing, West Acton too – which is handy as they were all on the way, and we soon had them in hand. A full list of where they all are is over on Geoff’s website here.
Art on the Underground also tweeted the ones that had previously been up, then removed whilst work took place at those stations, that have now all been put back up again – so for the first time since it started, all 270 are in place, simultaneously!
West Acton Labyrinth
C Stock Poster
It’s your last chance ever to catch a ‘C’ stock train in public service as the last one runs today with its scheduled last run being the 1.09pm from Wimbledon to Edgware Road where it will be taken out of service.
Tickets though, have now gone on sale at the LTM website for the C-Stock tour, later in the month.
Update: In the end, the last C Stock train departed Wimbledon at 09.05, and was then unceremoniously taken out of service at Edgware Road, due to it meeting its ‘mileage restriction limit’.
A power failure over the weekend it seems put some C-Stock trains out of place which led to this mis-calcuation, and so it was taken out of service earlier than planned so that the same unit can run as the final tour-train at the end of the month.
North Harrow Labyrinth
They’re still out there – and we’re still tracking them down! We love the Labyrinths.
Yesterday we ventured to the middle-to-dark end of the Bakerloo Line and picked up Queens Park, Kensal Rise and the brand new one that had been installed at Willesden Junction at last.
Coupled with Wimbledon and Richmond (two tricky NR stations) that have recently been added, by our calculations there are just seven stations left now that don’t yet have their Labyrinths installed, namely:
Acton Town, West Acton, North Ealing, Perivale, Brent Cross, East Finchley and Loughton.
Why these particular stations are last or problematic in getting a labyrinth installed (perhaps the Grade II listed status for some of them?) we don’t know, but the end is now in sight.
We also spoke to Art on the Underground yesterday who told us that the ones that had been put up at Cannon Street and Whitechapel (and then removed for maintenance work), are being re-installed next week.
With new labyrinths appearing at Uxbridge and Ruislip, we thought it was about time that we went out again and spotted a few more – which we did so this week, bringing our total up to 225 out of 270 found. Not that they’re actually still all up yet!
But our complete list can be found here (including locations within the station) of where they are. If you want to help us get the last few and spot/take the last few for us then do send us a tweet and get in touch!
North Harrow Labyrinth
Ickenham Labyrinth
Time for a Labyrinth update again as we were out on the network last week, doing some bashing and picked up a few Labyrinths on the way (Ickenham is Hard, South Kensington is particularly evil).
We note though that the official Art on the Underground website, still hasn’t added a few that do exist (e.g. Russell Square), but we’re quite excited because we’ve now got up to 205 – the first time we’ve been two hundred and something, meaning that we’re on the home straight.
The distinctly non-LU stations of Heathrow 5, Richmond and Wimbledon though are still being stubborn, and I suspect will be the last stations to have their labyrinths installed.
Anyway, here’s Geoff’s list if you’re having trouble finding any, or if you think you’ve spotted any that you want to tell us about then tweet us at @stnmasterapp
So it’s coming to almost a year since Art on the Underground announced that they were installing 270 unique labyrinth artworks at all tube stations – in the order that the 2009 record holder for ‘All stations, fastest time’ followed, and we wondered just how many had been installed now, and how many we’d found.
A quick count up on the AotU website, reveals that their maps shows that 239 of them have now been installed, with with just 31 left – although we’re still betting that Heathrow Terminal 5 (a non-LU owned station) may prove problematic for AotU to install that station’s labyrinth at.
In terms of spotting them, they’re still not that easy to find – their own website usefully and usually shows at least four photos at each station to give away their location, but some of the stations just have one picture of the labyrinth and no ‘location’ shots, meaning to find it you have to go there and hunt it down for yourself.
Over at Geofftech, there’s a list now of 123 that have been found, and we’re trying to fill in the gaps. So if any of the missing ones are for your local station or a station that you travel to frequently, fancy dropping us a tweet to help us fill in the gaps? Maybe there’s even a new one at one of the last remaining 31 stations that AotU haven’t told us about yet, and we can get well on the way to filling in all 270 …