The London Transport Museum

Abstract

The refurbished London Transport Museum remains one of the finest museums of urban transport in the world. Although the main audience is a general one, the museum’s exhibitions, archives and study facilities offer much to the specialist historian of technology. The new galleries present a survey of the many ways in which private and public transport has contributed to the development of London over the past two centuries. While public transport vehicles remain the dominant visual focus, they are contextualized in terms of the wider social, economic, and cultural history of the metropolis. The result is a series of exhibitions which, within the constraints of the medium, offers visitors a good introduction to the historical co-construction of transport technology and urban mobility and development. A final, and less successful, exhibition suggests how the future of urban mobility might develop given the imperative of addressing climate change.