Viking Magazine - March 2022 - 27

S
ince the late 19th century, rapid
transit systems have played an
increasingly important role in
transporting people around many
of the world's major metropolitan
cities. By consolidating and
moving traffic to a designated right-of-way-typically
underground-in their respective urban cores, these
systems provided a solution to the chaos and congestion
created by multitudes of competing horse-drawn
streetcars, overhead catenary-powered trolleys and
cable car services.
Dating to 1863, London's system is the world's oldest
while more recent systems include those of Helsinki
and Copenhagen, which opened in 1982 and 2002
respectively, and dozens of systems-both above and
below ground-have opened in developing nations over
the past 20 years. The presence and iconography of each
system inevitably influences the perception and identity
of its host city and vice versa; some have become
particularly famous throughout the world. London has
its ubiquitous Underground, nicknamed The Tube. New
York has the one and only New York City Subway. Berlin
has its well-known U-Bahn.
And while perhaps not quite as world-renowned
as these examples, the systems in Boston, Stockholm
and Oslo each maintain a unique degree of shared
synonymity and identity with their respective Ts. That's
because the rapid transit system in each of these three
cities is visually branded by a capital letter T centered
within a circle.
The Three Ts
In Boston, the T essentially stands for " transportation "
and is linked to the one found in MBTA (the official
abbreviation for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation
Authority), the entity that maintains and operates the
system. In Stockholm and Oslo, the T each stands for
" tunnel, " representing the fir t letter of the official name
of both systems: the Tunnelbana in Stockholm and
the Tunnelbane in Oslo. In these three cities, locals do
not talk about taking the " metro " or the " subway " from
point A to point B; they instead take " The T " or the
" T-Bana/T-bane. "
Having fir t opened in 1897, Boston's system is not
only substantially older than both Stockholm's (opened
in 1950) and Oslo's (opened in 1966) but was also the
fir t electrifi d underground transit system to open in
the United States and the fourth in the world. London's
Underground made the transition from steam-powered
to electric-powered in 1890 (thereby eliminating
the awful black smoke that had previously filled its
tunnels and vastly improving the rider experience) and
@sonsofnorway
Budapest and Glasgow each opened their electrifi d underground
systems in 1896.
But while Boston's system predates those in Stockholm and
Oslo by more than half a century, the T symbol was never a part
of its identity until the 1960s, when a team of architects tasked
with improving every aspect of the system's by-then outdated
and confusing aesthetics essentially copied the symbol from
Stockholm.
A Design from
Stockholm
The earliest version
of the T symbol had
already been in use in
Stockholm for three
decades by this time.
Although the modern
incarnation of the
Stockholm Tunnelbana
as a rapid transit system
did not open until 1950
with its fir t line that
connected Slussen in
the city center to the
suburban neighborhood
of Hökarängen, its
precursor had been
active since 1933.
Known as Södertunneln (The Southern Tunnel), this tunnel
connected Slussen via Södra Bantorget (now Medborgarplatsen)
to Ringvägen (now known as Skanstull; this stop lies along the
route towards Hökarängen) and provided a dedicated route
separate from street traffic for two existent streetcar lines that
serviced the city's southern suburbs.
The architect tasked with designing the Medborgarplatsen and
Holger Blom
Skanstull stations at this time was Holger Blom, who also left h s
stamp on the city with his design of Svampen ( " The Mushroom, "
an iconic structure in Stockholm's fashionable Östermalm
neighborhood) and the centrally-located park of Tegnérlunden,
a project that he co-designed with Erik Glemme while serving as
the city of Stockholm's official landscape architect.
During the design phase of Södertunneln and its stations, Blom
contacted his graphic designer and painter friend, Kalle Lodén,
and hired him to develop the logo for the new underground
service with these
instructions: " Det
versala T:et i klar
citrongul färg samt
'tunnelbanan' i vit
text på svart botten. "
( " The capital T in
clear lemon-yellow
with 'tunnelbanan' in
March 2022
27
Viking Magazine - March 2022

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