Good cities point the wayfaring stranger in the right direction

Wayfinding is an art form and one too often neglected. There is a whole industry built around this craft that seeks to manoeuvre us around airports, hospitals and cities using signs, graphics and clever design decisions. Perhaps the biggest compliment that you can pay practitioners of this trade is to say that you have never noticed their work: the outcomes of their deliberations should guide you along silently, unobtrusively. And if wayfinders are allowed to work on an architectural project from an early stage, the outcome can be a building, a place, that you navigate almost intuitively.
 
But when wayfinding is done badly? Yikes, you’re in trouble. Changing planes in Madrid-Barajas airport? Make sure you put aside a day. The wayfinding feels like the work of the mayor of Crazy Town. You follow signs that divert you up stairs, down escalators and some 10 minutes later return you to where you started. Your confidence ebbs. You start contemplating taking up permanent residence by the jamón counter. Berlin’s public transport system? You need to attend evening classes before heading out to the airport.

On Wednesday, we had a company meeting in Paris but before the team rendezvous I had been booked to appear on France24 to talk about The Monocle Quality of Life Survey and the French capital’s ranking in eighth position (up two spots, so no guillotine anticipated). They wanted me at the studios by 13.00 and on air at 13.50. From the map app on my phone, I could see the journey would take a modest 30 minutes on the Metro from Monocle’s Rue Bachaumont HQ. The Metro isn’t complicated but after a couple of stops I needed to switch on to an RER train and suddenly the wayfinding went from gentle guiding hand to “spin this fool around and see if he can ever get to his destination”. My map app had totally given up on me, replaced by a laughing emoji.

I asked a local for help and, after turning my phone this way and that, he guided me to the platform. Being cautious, I double-checked with another confident-looking gent who said that I was in the totally wrong place. “It’s very difficult to find the right train unless you know the system,” he confided. Even once on the correct platform, you needed to know which of the numerous incoming trains was yours – and there was no map. By now it was already 13.10 and I was regretting wearing a jacket and pressed shirt on such a steamy day.

A young couple asked if perhaps I needed assistance (or putting in a care home). I concurred (to the former). They then stood with me, put me on the right train and waved me goodbye like a child off to school for the first time. I arrived at the studios perspiring, my nice shirt now clinging to me as though I was entering the seniors round of a wet T-shirt competition. Fifteen minutes later, I was on air.
After the show, I booked a car.

And this is why good urban wayfinding matters – because when it becomes muddled, disjointed, it triggers a loss of confidence in people. Once that happens, there are all manner of consequences. Buildings need to staff up information desks, tourists jump on the crammed hot Metro rather than walk, people give up on life and throw themselves in the Seine (at least it’s clean now).

I was booked on the last Eurostar back to London on Thursday and, not to be defeated by the eighth best city in the world, rode a Lime bike through the city to Gare du Nord. People were out in force on this hot night. At many bars people were glued to TV screens – perhaps watching a repeat airing of a sweaty Englishman on France 24? No, damn them, it was the England vs DR Congo football match.

I took my Eurostar seat, settled in and thought to myself: Paris is amazing – well, as long as you can find it.