Single Aspect Blog

Maxwell Hutchinson analyses the rebuilding of post-war Britain through unique and exclusive archive interviews on the 50th anniversary of the emblematic Parkhill Flats.

An excellent programme from the series Archive on 4 of which the history of Park Hill flats in Sheffield formed the backbone, while finding time to branch off and talk about Robin Hood Gardens in East London, and the World’s End Chelsea, all against a background of the whole post war reconstruction effort.

What makes the programme come alive are the many interviews included with developers, architects and planners from the period, Mark Latham (Urban Splash), Ivor Smith (Park Hill), Lord (Lionel) Escher (Hatfield), Peter Smithson (Robin Hood Gardens), Jim Cadbury Brown (World’s End), Bill Berret (Milton Keynes), Sir Anthony Derbyshire (Castle Market), Sir Philip Powell (Skylon), Simon Thurley (EH), Andrew Saint, Alan Powers (C20th and University of Greenwich) and many others.

It was cautious in its criticism of projects where problems had occurred and sought to be objective rather than polemical in its format, certainly looking for the best in the history of post war housing rather than the worst.

Well worth a listen if the subject engages you

Rebuilding Britain Radio 4

It was impossible to listen to that programme without coming to the conclusion that the present Government are morally bankrupt.  We heard people of real stature talking about the need to house thousands of people and their part in making it happen.  We have a similar problem now with long waiting lists for council housing and what do we get?  Sell the rest of the council housing stock off at half price and build 16,000 houses.  Encourage first time buyers to buy new houses in an inflated private housing market with a Government backed deposit enabling a 95% loan.

Mentally vacuous, morally bankrupt and timorous in ambition

Where are the Park Hills of tomorrow to be built and who will build them?

BBC Notes

Maxwell Hutchinson analyses the great push to re-build post war Britain on the fiftieth anniversary of the emblematic Parkhill Flats.

In the 1990’s architect and broadcaster Maxwell Hutchinson began recording interviews with the men who re-built Britain after World War 2. These idealists – then in their eighties- told how they’d returned from war to a country ravaged by the Luftwaffe, determined to design a country fit for heroes . Many were graduates of the left-leaning Architectural Association and brought their radical ideas, influenced by le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, to building social housing for slum clearance families ; hospitals for the infant NHS; schools for the children of the Butler Education act; and bold new tower blocks that would transform the city skyline. Most of them worked for local authorities and saw their profession as a public service. These “duffle-coated pip-squeaks” as they were known, included Sir Phillip Powell ,Sir Andrew Derbyshire , Ivor Smith, Peter Smithson , the father of Brutalism; Lord Esher and Jim Cadbury Brown. Many have since died. Using these interviews, plus newsreel and contemporary archive , this programme captures that idealism and reflects the later disillusionment when modernism – and architects – fell out of fashion.

2011 is the fiftieth anniversary of Parkhill Flats, Sheffield. It was seen as the embodiment of the modernist movement – streets in the sky to replace the grim terraces bulldozed after the war to give families indoor lavatories, central heating and airy balconies. At first the families couldn’t believe their luck – they loved their modern new homes. But as the building began to show cracks, and the community spirit failed to translate from slum-terrace to deck access, Parkhill Flats became a by-word for all that was rotten in the state of post war architecture. It wasn’t long before residents starting chucking their rubbish over the balconies, and the flats became the new slums. Peter Smithson, once blamed the residents of his much criticised development, Robin Hood Gardens (a sister project to Parkhill) for letting the building go to rack and ruin; for “painting their doors purple” and not applying “the minor arts of occupation”.

Parkhill Flats – the largest listed building in Europe – is undergoing extensive renovation by the trendy developers Urban Splash; so the story of this emblematic building, which Sheffielders love and loathe in equal measure, is still a talking point. Maxwell Hutchinson goes back to Parkhill to see the renovation, talk to former residents and find out if the post-war dream of the young architects who designed this colossal building can be revived.