Single Aspect Blog

UPDATE: Following the release of the BBC archive series Post War Architecture I am now able to point out that the first audio clip quoted in the programme below is taken from the opening seconds of Architecture at the crossroads : Doubt and Reassessment

“If one had to choose one symbol of the very worst kind of modern architectural crime it would surely be the crumbling housing estate. Its walls covered in graffiti, its windows smashed, its windy courtyards covered in litter, and its residents living in perpetual fear of muggers and thieves.” Meridian – Architectural Murder – 1986 – BBC World Service – listen here at 28 mins long Architectural Murder

While browsing through the list of programmes resulting from my one word search term “housing”, I came across this delightful half hour programme from the BBC World Service first broadcast in 1986.

It ranges in content from a discussion with Richard Rogers about the Lloyds Building to the then up and coming London Docklands regeneration and the architecture to be built. About 15 minutes in the quotation above appears and a long discussion about the regeneration of the Lea View estate at Springfield in Clapton (East London) takes place.

It’s very interesting and had a positive outcome the best of which was to keep the original residents in place which is more than can be said for all the displacement so called regeneration schemes going on all over London at the moment and in recent years.

A quick web search for Lea View John Thompson (the architect of the project) led to a couple of useful links, the first being:-

https://www.clapton.freeservers.com/catalog.html

which gives a snapshot of the project and the rather more detailed book entitled Community Architecture: How People Are Creating Their Own Environment By Nick Wates, Charles Knevit

One telling moment is near the end where Colin Amery seemingly dismisses the wonderful achievements of the post war generation of architects in one sentence:-

“I think it’s because architects are only just beginning to ask perfectly ordinary people what they actually want. It’s hard to explain why that’s happened and they’ve made a great song and dance now about how much they care for the communities having really wrecked them during the last twenty years.”

In fact I think it’s more complicated than that in that in the immediate post war period of the late 1940s and much of the 1950s I think housing was designed with the needs of its residents in mind, but from 1956 onwards when the high rise subsidy was introduced and it was found that housing was not being built quickly enough to re-house all those who needed it, that system building came in as architects became less influential and less necessary since by then standard designs of tower block were available.

So in that sense Colin Amery is quite correct. Speaking as he does in 1986 about the period since 1966 one has to conclude that with the exception of some well built schemes across London, these being Balfron and Trellick Tower by Erno Goldfinger, Robin Hood Gardens by the Smithsons, and the wonderful work of Sydney Cook and colleagues in Camden, that an awful lot of poor quality modernist concrete estates were put up.

Having now read the relevant few pages of the book above I think the work of Alice Coleman needs to be considered in conjunction with the what was learned at Lea View. It is easy to criticise Alice Coleman (and I have) for failing to consider the effects of poverty on the demise of the concrete estates, but clearly had the residents been included in discussions about alterations (such as the removal of high level walkways) then even greater progress might have been made.

It is nevertheless a programme well worth listening to for anyone interested in the history of post war architecture.