London Modernist Estates
August 7th, 2011
These are just a few well known but random examples. There are many more scattered across the UK so if you’re planning a tour by all means include these but please don’t think that this list is exhaustive, far from it, these are but a few and Heygate, Ferrier and Aylesbury are fast disappearing from view thanks to regeneration.
Aylesbury Peckham
Pepys Deptford (remodelled)
This one doesn’t really fit (Pepys). I feel undecided about including it because so much of the beton brut has been removed during the 1990s remodelling and it never was a large soulless concrete estate in the way that the others on this page are. However, I am equally loath to alter the page to the extent of removing it and so it will remain for now, an estate of three tower blocks and low rise blocks rather than acres of monolithic raw concrete blocks like Ferrier and Thamesmead South.
Ferrier Kidbrooke
Thamesmead (Abbey Wood)
Simon Thurley does a good job on the Barbican, for about five minutes, towards the end of the last of this series.
https://youtu.be/SLF5Bq_zrU8?t=2368
He makes the point that a modern estate of that size survives only owing to the vast amounts of money poured into it by the City for maintenance, while leaving the viewer to understand where the opposite approach leads.