When work began in 1967, Mexico City’s metro system signified a dramatic modernisation of the cityscape. Making room for the metro meant clearing away some familiar aspects of the urban landscape, as well as introducing residents to the strange new spaces of the network’s underground tunnels and stations.
To integrate this new layer of urban infrastructure with the existing city’s pre-Columbian, colonial, and contemporary layers, the authors of the subway relied on a pictographic system. Lance Wyman, a New York-based graphic designer, designed icons to identify each metro station.
Instead of a name, this new geographic entity was visually connected to an existing historical or geographical feature.