Concorde lands nation's top design icon title

Published on Friday 17 March 2006 01:40

THE aircraft that flew from New York to London in less than three hours is now a museum piece, but the enduring appeal of Concorde saw it emerge as the winner last night in a national poll to find the Britain's favourite design.

The result was announced at the Museum of Flight in East Lothian, on board Concorde G-BOAA, shipped there in 2004.

More than 200,000 votes were cast in the poll run by the Design Museum in London and BBC2's The Culture Show to find Britain's favourite design icon since 1900.

In a closely fought battle, the London Underground Map beat the Supermarine Spitfire to take second place. Other designs in the top ten included the Mini, the Routemaster bus, the worldwide web and the catseye.

They were followed by the video games Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto, and the K2 Telephone kiosk, better known as the red telephone box.

The new Concorde exhibit has also put the Museum of Flight on a shortlist of ten UK museums for the prestigious Gulbenkian Prize.

Staff are hoping the icon poll result will help it to victory for the 100,000 prize. National Museums of Scotland director, Gordon Rintoul, said: "Concorde won because Concorde is quite simply, for a huge number of people, an amazing symbol of British design and technology."