ABSTRACT
During the 1980s, public transport became a growth area for public art, almost becoming a sub-specialism,1 as artists were employed to make work for stations and collaborate in the design of transport facilities.2 In one way this continued the tradition of the London Underground, which had employed artists to design posters for its stations since Edwardian times, and the New York Subway, in which stations built at the beginning of the century were embellished with decorative tiles; but it also created new kinds of opportunity for artists to engage in collaborative processes of design. This development took place in context of a wider involvement of artists in the design of public spaces, as in several projects in Seattle,3 and at Battery Park City. But whilst art in urban development may, as argued in the previous chapter, be complicit in abjection, public transport is seen as a social ‘good’ available to most members of an urban society, decreasing pollution and levels of energy use, thus contributing to urban sustainability.4
