The Trellick Tower is arguably the most famous piece of council house architecture in London, if not the country.
As well as being a symbol for the by-gone era of high-rise brutalist buildings, Trellick became synonymous with social problems, ranging from racial tension to troubled youths, in its notorious heyday.
The Guardian says: "One Christmas, vandals on the 12th floor opened the fire hydrant and unleashed thousands of gallons of water into the lifts, blowing fuses and leaving the block without electricity, heat, water or toilet facilities. Grind up another three floors and you would be where a 27-year-old woman was dragged from the lift and raped. Down the same corridor a depressed young mother jumped to her death. On the 21st floor, an 11-year-old girl was dragged from a lift into the chute room and attacked."
(Read the rest of The Guardian's article here - it's fantastic)
The tower of tightly packed flats, with the separate lift tower bringing people every third floor, was designed by Erno Goldfinger (who based his design on the Trellick's little sister - the Balfron Tower in east London) in 1966 for the Greater London Council. Construction was completed in 1972.
The thin service tower houses the lifts, as well as a rubbish chute and emergency stairs.
Approaching the tower from Westbourne Park station, Trellick can be seen from afar, and embarking on my unguided tour I first pass through the Edenham estate to get to the base of the tower.
The Trellick's surrounding houses are surprisingly low and terrace like, donning interesting garage door designs that perhaps give an idea of the area's historic context.
Walking through the estate, I came upon the first of a series of concrete walkways linking the buildings here.
They don't make for friendly walking.
This photo shows the second, lower slab of the complex - which sits just to the south of the tower.
From this walkway I also see, for the first time, the recreational area at the base of the tower, from which the above flats seem to grow.
It is completely cut off from any kind of street with passing traffic, and no people could ever really know what was going on down here. There is no doubt that it is spaces like this that contributed to the general malaise of the building.
Eventually I emerge onto the main road.
This leads to the main entrance of the building, where residents installed a door entry intercom system and a 24-hour concierge in the mid-1980's - a step that led to a much friendler atmosphere tower, eventually stamping out the social problems associated with Trellick.
Walking around to the north side of the tower, it is easier to get right up to the building and even walk underneath it - though this doesn't look like an enticing prospect.
The passage leads back to the back of the building and from there down to the recreational area/basketball court, via a flight of steps.
The bars on the left of the picture here protect what looks like an abandoned area under the building.
Ending my tour here seems appropriate, as it is from this angle that the true scale of the tower can really be appreciated.
Finally, leading on from my earlier posts referencing music videos the Trellick Tower deserves a mention. It featured in Blur's 'For Tomorrow', The Gorrilaz' 'Tomorrow Comes Today' and The Good, The Bad and The Queen's 'Kingdom of Doom' - all spearheaded by Damon Albarn, who today lives nearby in fancy Notting Hill.
But the video I'm posting here is Depeche Mode's 'Little 15'. Just because I love Depeche Mode (and the first two minutes all centre around the building).
I have so much to say about Robin Hood Gardens, I'm not sure where to start.
The estate was designed in the 1960s by Alison and Peter Smithson and building work completed in 1972. It's a design very much of the era - incorporating the then much lauded 'streets in the sky' concept, with wide landings where people living on higher floors could socialise as if on their doorsteps on the ground.
These 'streets' are located on every third floor...
Picture courtesy of Tower Hamlets local history library
The estate sits just to the south of the Balfron Tower on the eastern end of Poplar near the Blackwall DLR station.
There are two main blocks, both with a long, linear shape, built from pre-cast concrete and home to 213 flats. The lower block is seven storeys high, the taller ten.
Picture courtesy of Tower Hamlets local history library
The entrances are imposing, almost dwarfing the people entering.
Between the two buildings is a landscaped grassy area, built using the rubble of of the construction spoil. At the moment the area seems sadly underused - one of many problems that could be fixed by some slight intervention from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
But that won't be a problem for much longer, because following many years of campaigning from residents at the estate and the architectural community the demolition of these two buildings and the reshaping of the land here is certain to go ahead.
For some reason the council thinks that these buildings - known for well-proprtioned rooms and a lot of happy residents - are not worth investing maintenance money in, and has long been pushing for the demolition and remodelling of the area as part of the wider Blackwall Reach regeneration project.
In 2008 the architecture newspaper Building Design launched a campaign to have the buildings listed - gaining support from industry heavyweights such as Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster, Dan Cruickshank and Lord Rogers, as well as the philosopher Alain de Botton and the New York Times.
English Heritage, a government quango, opposed the listing of the building despite a recommendation from its own advisers that it should be listed. Eventually the then architecture minister Margaret Hodge (famously, not a fan of brutalist architecture) ruled that Robin Hood Gardens wouldn't be listed.
Following an appeal the government upheld its decision and even granted it immunity from listing.
A sad day.
(see an excellent timeline of events, as published in Building Design, here)
I spoke to one of the residents here at length. He has been living on the estate for more than 15 years and said the councils' claims that the majority of residents want the buildings torn down are based on a survey of a very small section of the community.
He has carried out his own survey, of every resident, and has found above 80% support for its remodelling.
Nonetheless, the council is pushing ahead with its plans. Two teams have now been shortlisted to redevelop the estate. Neither proposal includes a reworking of the existing buildings.
Unlike Park Hill in Sheffield, another example of a typical 1960s brutalist estate (that had the luck to be listed), where the developer Urban Splash has worked hard to make a revamp work.
Images courtesy of Urban Splash
At Robin Hood Gardens demolition will start next year.
I urge you to go see the estate before it disappears.
The Lansbury Estate in Poplar, east London probably isn't that familiar to people by name, but in terms of social housing history it is one of the most important in the city.
Named after the Labour MP George Lansbury, the estate was built on one of London's most badly bombed sites, where thousands of terraced homes fell to ruin leaving a huge housing shortage for east-enders.
Planned by the London County Council, who wanted to reduce the size of the population in the area, it was decided that the first phase of works should form a 'live' architecture exhibition for the 1951 Festival of Britain (probably a first for social housing in the country). The aim of the showcase was to provide a tract of housing that the public could walk through and experience on a real scale. It was intended that the majority of the buildings were finished, with some partly constructed to show off methodology.
Architects Bridgwater & Shepheard designed all of the dwellings on Development Site III, or the Central Housing Site.
The first lot of six- and three-storey blocks of flats were built adjacent to East India Dock Road, providing 158 homes.
The first family to move in here were Mr and Mrs Albert Snoddy with their two children and pet tortoise, which you can just about see by her knee in this picture. (I am told the lady on the right is her mother-in-law).
Nearby, a portion of a row of terrace houses, standing on Pekin Close, remain with their original London stock brick facade, while others (like the first one in the second picture) have been modified by their owners.
Each terrace house originally had three bedrooms, a kitchen facing the street side and a living room.
Across from the close, on Pekin Street, Bridgewater & Shepheard designed a series of semi-detached, or linked, houses that are seen as pretty unusual for this part of London.
These were a mix of three- and four-bedroom homes together with a living room and kitchen in the main house, with links containing a way through to the garden and a bathroom on top.
Chrisp Street Market, which I've already mentioned in my blog about the Balfron Tower, was also part of the live architecture exhibition of the festival. Here are some more pictures of how it looks today.
Following the festival, construction on the remainder of the estate continued until 1982 when construction completed on the blocks on Pigott Street, and it remains one of the largest in the area.
I'd like to say thank you to the good folk at 14th Estate, who told me all about the history of the area as part of a walking tour, and must give them credit for the architectural plans and archive photographs shown here (which came from the Tower Hamlets local history library).
I realise this might be a slightly odd title for a blog about council housing.
I've called this blog 'Love London council housing' because as I walk around this city I very often admire the design and thought that has gone into its social housing. I enjoy looking at these buildings, I enjoy visiting them, and I lived in one for some time during university and enjoyed that too.
I think a lot of architects working on these projects, on very limited budgets and to the demands of the councils (who post WWII wanted high volumes built cheaply and quickly) put a lot of thought into their designs and making them work for the necessary cost and benefit of communities.
But I feel like I've come to hear the other side of the argument.
Tonight I went to a talk, organised by Local History Library & Archives and Bow Arts Trust, as part of their 14th Floor project (a fantastic venture - see their blog here).
There was a panel of three speakers - Marcel Baettig, founder of the Bow Arts Trust (an artists' collective - some of whom inhabit the top floors of the Balfron Tower and who kindly opened up one of their flats for Open House), a representative from Tower Hamlets Community Housing and Lynsey Hanley, author of the very interesting book Estates (which you can buy here - or borrow from your local library like I did).
I read Lynsey's intimate and thoughtful book before attending the talk. I found her story inspiring - she grew up on the edge of 'the Wood', an estate on the periphery of Birmingham - and think she really gets to grips with redefining what it means to both live in an estate and how they are perceived by outsiders. Listening to her speak, it is clear that she cares deeply about social housing, how it is used, its effects on residents and a sense of equality that everyone should have a 'decent standard' home to live in. Most of all, she wants councils to learn from mistakes made in the past, ensuring future housing stock is sustainable and, ultimately, desirable.
What I found interesting, and what caused me to ask think about my reasons for taking an interest in London's council housing, is that she believes vehemently that buildings like the Balfron Tower never fell into this category.
Following a comment from the audience Lynsey said she disagreed that the Balfron Tower is 'visually arresting' but rather that it's somewhere where 'people were experimented on'. She went on to say 'professional people don't live in buildings that look like this'.
I believe that the Balfron Tower, like the Trellick Tower and Keeling House among others, are landmarks and should be preserved for the originality that they bring to the city's housing stock. And I know of plenty of people, architects and myself included, who would love to live in buildings like this.
That made me think about my definition of 'loving' this kind of social housing....I love it because deep down I do tend to believe in some of the ideals that the building's designers alluded to. And I love the diversity it brings to the cityscape. There is nothing more depressing than rows and low-lying blocks of 'modern' housing.
But maybe I am too idealistic and perhaps we need more people like Lynsey, who have lived the reality and seen the architects' dreams shatter.
