Park Hill – Owen Hatherley writing in Red Pepper
July 17th, 2011
Having just got back from Sheffield, this is extremely timely, if you haven’t read it the link is below, and if you have read it here’s a reminder.
Streets in the sky
Park Hill, in Sheffield, was the first attempt to solve this problem. Like any other post-war redevelopment scheme, it was the product of emergency – the need to rebuild a teeming, crumbling slum of back-to-backs crowded above Sheffield’s Midland station.
Of my own trip, more later… there was this one shot I just can’t resist, that I took this morning, I walked past the Alexandra (now student flats) and getting my trade, note landlord also runs the Tap and Barrel about 200 yds away.
and completely unexpectedly saw the sun shining through Park Hill flats from the other side. I was reminded of something that Owen Hatherley had said in a talk last year at the RFH on Level 5 where he said that Park Hill Phase One was a billboard for the city but the block itself was empty behind the coloured panels, and I think this photo illustrates that very well.
Click image for larger version