Maps and views blog

Cartographic perspectives from our Map Librarians

24 November 2016

20th Century Panoramaniac

I love panoramas and this one inspired my love of the Alps and mountain mapping.

Berranan

Heinrich Berann, [Jungfraubahn mountain railroad, Switzerland], 1939. British Library Maps 1060.(4.).

Panoramas form a fascinating niche collection within the 4.5 million maps in the British Library’s collections. They have a long history and my second favourite is the 1851 fabric view of London produced for the Great Exhibition with south at the top and the original ‘Crystal Palace’ laid out in Hyde Park.

Changing mapping technologies have influenced the panorama and its uses in war, discovery and peaceful pursuits especially winter sports.

19.G70125-23

Heinrich Berann, Atlantic Ocean Floor, 1968. ©National Geographic

The British Library's current exhibition Maps & the 20th Century: Drawing the Line showcases the finest exponent of the late 20th century, Heinrich Berann (1915-1999) and his panorama of the Atlantic sea-bed.  An Austrian, Berann began with his Grossglockner Hochalpenstraße of 1934 and his final panoramas of U.S. ski areas came out in the mid 1980s.

My favourite is one I discovered while sipping a non-alcoholic beverage in a street café in Interlaken and is a paper beer tray mat with an image of Berann's Bernese Oberland panorama (top image). Under the glass, this utterly stunning piece of art showed the whole area in perfect, sunny weather, a wispy cloud over the Jungfrau, each railway, road and mountain in perfect detail. It made me want to explore more… once the rain clouds had dispersed of course. And it was there to be got wet, scrunched up and thrown in the bin… how!

This map made me realise there was more to maps than an my trusty Ordnance Survey sheet of Hexham, no matter how good they were, and I wanted to discover more about cartography in all its facets.  Berann is no longer with us but his panoramas still inspire cartographers and art lovers alike.

See more of Berann's stunning work here

Maps & the 20th Century: Drawing the Line is now open

Dave Watt

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