This article at Wired.com is a bit older and the exhibition in Tokyo mentioned in it is going to close this week, but that doesn’t dampen the awesomeness of these illustrations that artist Tomoyuki Tanaka produced of Tokyo’s major train stations. He draws the stations in X-Ray style to illustrate the layout and the connections between the platforms and the outside world. If you’ve ever been in a remotely complex underground train station, you’ll know that it is easy to lose orientation because it’s hard to determine which direction you are heading in. Landmarks that you use outside to help to orientate yourself are missing and it’s hard to figure out how the various levels of the stations are located in repsect to each other. While Tanaka’s drawings are probably not suited to be hung in a station for orientation (though more schematic maps of this type are found in stations sometimes), it is still interesting to see the layouts in this way. Even if it’s just to marvel at the complexity or our urban infrastructure that you don’t usually realize when navigating it on your commute.
See more examples of Tanaka’s work on his website.
X-Ray isometric drawing of Shibuya station by Tomoyuki Tanaka. Via wired.com