Housing – 17 Camden Road, NW1
August 20th, 2011
At the end of a busy week photographing housing schemes in London I found myself in a wet and crowded Camden Town standing on the bank of a canal, brolly wedged under one arm, digital camera precariously balanced in the other hand and trying to avoid fast moving bicycles threatening to knock me into the canal.
Highpoint 1 Highgate
August 20th, 2011
During a week in London while looking at Lubetkin’s buildings this one came round on a rather soggy Saturday afternoon, the large ribbon windows proving a delight in the face of modern housing design that prefers to keeps its owners in the dark.
From Here to Modernity – Part One
More photos at my Flickr page:-
https://www.flickr.com/photos/singleaspect/sets/72157627430102967/
Modern Architecture has photos and floor plans here:-
https://modernarchitecturelondon.com/pages/highpoint.php
Architects Journal Buildings Library
https://www.ajbuildingslibrary.co.uk/projects/display/id/2902
Branch Hill Hampstead
August 20th, 2011
Built on a slope in the grounds of a large house, Branch Hill is Maiden Lane in miniature, albeit less tatty and with wealthier residents. Both “by the great Scottish Corbusian architects Benson and Forsyth” – Douglas Murphy
I couldn’t help being reminded of my own past where a college was built on a sloping site in the 1970s in the grounds of a stately home. It must have been the pattern of the time, to make the best use of available land.
Ferrier Kidbrooke – death of a housing ideal
August 19th, 2011
Welcome to the Ferrier Kidbrooke estate, this is was the view as you leave left the station.
Bottom centre, a row of shops, much diminished now owing to lack of custom because the estate is mostly empty. Bottom right the corner of a poster put up by the developers, Berkeley Homes for the new Kidbrooke Village.
Kidbrooke Village – Phase One
August 19th, 2011
This is an edited version of the original article since the “kitchen” is my main objection.
The living room is the largest room in the flat, extending the full width of the structural bay, containing an L shaped row of kitchen units completely ruining the effect.
Every time I look at this I think it stinks – it’s appalling – it’s not a kitchen
Thamesmead – water, grass, trees and parks
August 19th, 2011
A beautiful sunlit day, unlike yesterday which was overcast and raining, so off again to Thamesmead, this time to cover the bits I missed and to get some decent photographs.
Brief history of housing in C20th
August 18th, 2011
The history is pretty straightforward if depressing in that before the war large amounts of housing throughout the country were unfit for human habitation and had been built during the industrial revolution to the standards of the time which for working people were often what the employer could get away with.
The 1930s was seen as a time to start clearing the slums and large housing blocks such as Quarry Hill in Leeds and Gerard Gardens and others were built in Liverpool, it’s worth seeing the film Homes for Workers to see what was being done at that time.
After the war the Modernists had their chance to rebuild the housing of Britain and in addition to many houses with gardens large numbers of flats were built often on estates, with varying degrees of success, let’s not forget the new towns either.
Unfortunately the situation in the inner cities was less good. London had much new housing built but this fell short of that required leaving many people trapped in poor quality privately rented accommodation with the scandal of Rachmanism that marked the early 1960s.
With families being broken up by social services if they became homeless, the film Cathy Come Home by Ken Loach was a cry for help for those families so troubled and led, ten years on to a change in the law such that council homes were no longer allocated to those who could show good references and a record of employment, but rather to those most in need.
While a worthy aim the long term effect of this policy when combined with the inevitable effects of right to buy has been to create sink estates where in earlier decades lived a range of people of all backgrounds.
Which brings us back to Ferrier. From the podcast linked below we learn that former inmates of the asylums were housed in small numbers on Ferrier and there was of course the compounding effect of right to buy where those who could afford to bought and moved out, letting the property, often to recipients of benefits. Some who could not afford to but bought anyway, defaulted and had their homes repossessed thus losing their security of tenure and reverting to the bottom of the waiting list, and lastly those left behind who could not afford to buy even with the discount.
UPDATE: This gives a good account of public housing in the last century:-
Thamesmead South
August 18th, 2011
On a grey and overcast day coming on to rain I viewed the béton brut of Thamesmead and perhaps these were the ideal conditions to view a form of construction that has fallen from favour in housing.
Photo set on Flickr of Thamesmead South
https://www.flickr.com/photos/singleaspect/sets/72157627544886106/
A film about the development from 1970 Thamesmead and Plumstead Marshes on film
Thamesmead
August 18th, 2011
Train to Abbey Wood and bus to Thamesmead Centre, which is not incidentally in the centre at all but close to the river, on the NW of the site. After leaving Abbey Wood station the bus (B11) wove through the oldest béton brut part of the site passing all those concrete blocks, walkways and towers for which the estate is infamous.
Spa Green Estate – Tecton 1943-50
August 16th, 2011
As part of a Lubetkin visit to the capital I went to see the Spa Green Estate. It wasn’t hard to find, in fact I walked past it on my way from the Angel tube station to Rosebury Hall where I was staying one Sunday evening. It sits on Rosebury Avenue opposite the rebuilt Sadler’s Wells theatre in a park setting.
More photos at my Flickr page here:-
https://www.flickr.com/photos/singleaspect/sets/72157627535915878/
More photos from Modern Architecture here:-