Art on the Underground (Piccadilly Circus station)

On our way to the Mexico exhibition, we came across this clever reconstruction of the now-iconic Tube map -

 The year of the original was 1933, and some lines were yet to be built -

 But some stations in use then are no longer in use - British Museum, Strand, and most recently Aldwych (see photos of them, then and now, here) -

 For comparison, a detail of Harry Beck's map (from here) -

The Tube map is actually a diagram, as it ignores the important Western convention of mapping that requires accurate distances between points. But you knew that. What is more surprising is the graphic uses it has been put to - determining life expectancy of children born near each station, and showing that house prices rise by £150,000 a minute as you journey into the centre of town are two I've come across recently. A thorough search would no doubt reveal even greater inventiveness.

Also at Piccadilly Circus station, a display of work by Jacqueline Poncelet -

Originally a ceramicist, she has a passion for pattern and colour, and is bringing that into architecture, printing patterns onto metal and dressing buildings with them, for instance Wrapper above Edgware Road tube station -