How London Was Redesigned To Survive Wartime Blackouts

One of the more interesting scene of urban lifetime during the bombing raids of World War II was the cagy and strategic re - designing of the London streetscape so that residents could survive in a body politic of blackout .

By turning off the light at night , residents could hide the metropolis from aerial view and thus entrust Nazi bombers flying around in the darkness , unsure of where to cast off their bomb . It was a dissimilar form of disguise , one that blot out the urban center against the surrounding landscape by plunging its street and construction into iniquity .

An obvious problem immediately present itself here , however , which is that with only very minimum outdoor firing to maneuver them , how were railroad car , pedestrians , train , and even dogs imagine to sail the city safely ? A punctilious and detailed re - painting of workaday objects and landmarks was thus launch , with everything from curbs to wearable get rhythmic white-hot band and stripe total to them for easygoing detection .

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Here are some photos , all courtesy of the Hulton Archive at Getty Images , show life in wartime London adapting through the app of black & white graphic blueprint and some improvised national decoration — stripes became a sort of enforced zeitgeist — all to aid fool the Nazi zep buzzing far above .

From bloodless bumpers on cars , give with a quick coat of paint —

— to steps , curb , and even lamppost , the metropolis became a homochromatic practice of reflective stripes and checkerboard , stuttering their room from borough to borough .

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But perhaps my pet detail in this strategy for emitting as little light as possible come from the weird additions made to architectural structure , whether seal up window on trains to prevent any light from leak out as the car clinked along their outside route in peace treaty and dark —

— or put in DIY roofs known as “ entrance hoods ” to the top of Tube station steps to keep all that ignitor shinny only for those below .

These hood were likedeconstructivist architecturebefore the name , a throw - together metallic element raspberry ’s nest of corrugated steel , concrete block , and other daily materials that , who knows , perhaps even supplied an early architectural precedent for the later body of work ofa young Frank Gehry with his house in Santa Monica .

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Yet all was not just at the architectural or urban scale . Unfortunately , Getty Images does n’t seem to have the photos I was looking for here , but even the habiliment of London residents changed , incorporating white bands and patch on the sleeve , leg , and berm , even on the brims of hats , so as to increase visibleness in dark situations .

Indeed , to acclaim a cab — cars could force , albeit with their lighter severely cut by blinds and shutters — one was meant to wear a pair of white - palmed gloves , and to concisely straighten out the decoration of the paw to indicate where you were digest and that you needed a hack .

Even dogs were outfitted for their new biography in this self - inflict urban dark .

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Of course , it was n’t absolutely pitch calamitous , as the white palm and flashlight example makes evident . footer and cyclist were advised to walk at night with belittled flashlights , just enough to indicate their presence to other walkers and enough to help channelize themselves home past the striped labyrinth of strange ashen markings that had appeared throughout the city .

These flashlights — captured in the incredible , long - exposure image take care below — formed a beautiful tangled mass of illumination , stream through and around intersections and corner , into and out of store , around and alongside one another .

That this phantasmagorical and irregular redesign of the urban center was prompt by war — or , more specifically , by the terror of avoiding Nazi eradication from above — should not take out from the possible urban lessons such a remaking of the urban center might offer us today .

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In other quarrel , these easy , DIY ways of altering the urban center so that residents can navigate without the benefit of excessive electric firing might bespeak other , equally clever means for fix ourselves for succeeding blackouts . These are simple design modification that make the metropolis resilient , safe , and navigable during exponent cuts , and , in many cases , want nothing more than a patterned coat of pigment and some specially design overclothes .

Could the city — any city , any Ithiel Town — incorporate little low - cost bits and bobs like this and make them a permanent part of the built landscape painting , something that would help oneself both the visually impaired and people without galvanic lighting get by ?

All picture courtesy Getty Images / Hulton Archive .

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