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Stevenage, 1971
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They've blown them all sky high...
Lee Munro was born in Basil Spence's Queen Elizabeth flats in Hutchesontown-Gorbals, and he's made this montage of photos to commemorate them, long after their mid-90s demolition. As he says at the end, 'it was an amazing place with amazing people'. It's a bit heavy on the old Ken Burns effect but the pics are great and the sentiment is heartwarming. And Sky High is a bit of a classic too. The pic at the top of this article was taken from here (where there's plenty more beauties!) and was one of the original architect's perspective drawings.
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Terry and June and John
My home town of Croydon was celebrated in the initial 1979 title sequence of the ultimate suburban sitcom, Terry and June. In the titles, Terry arrives at the old East Croydon Station, with Richard Seifert's Thrupenny Bit building in the background, and June's stuck round the corner at the Fairfield Halls. Next June is on the escalator in the original Whitgift Centre ('classic' if you will), feet away from Webster's bookshop where I used to work, while Terry is skittering along a balcony behind her. This illustrates the sitcom perfectly: they have arranged to do something dull and uncontroversial, to meet in the town centre, but are waiting in entirely different places. And then, instead of waiting, as any normal person would do, they both run off to completely different parts of town with absolutely no motive, 'just in case'.
It's amazing to me that Croydon's concrete town centre could be such a cosy sitcom signifier, but then little about Terry and June was explicable. If you're from Cumbernauld you have Gregory's Girl and Cumbernauld Hit. If you're from Tyneside you have Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads and Get Carter. If you're from Birmingham you have Take Me High and Telly Savalas. Well, I'm from Croydon and I have Terry and June, so I win.
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Birmingham, when the concrete was still fresh
MACE, the Media Archive of Central England, has loads of gems on Vimeo, including this, footage of John Madin's Birmingham Central Library from 1970 to 1974. It's all local news footage, including unused rushes, showing the library being built and moved into. This one's short and sweet.
Birmingham Central Library (Construction and Completion 1970 to 1974) from MACE Archive on Vimeo.
This second clip is slightly earlier, longer and more coherent. It's John Laing's promotional film for the Bull Ring Shopping Centre from 1965. It's a glorious piece of PR, considering how few shops they'd let at the time, and is full of nostalgic touches, be they Richard Shops, Austin 1100s, Muzak or a royal talking favourably about modernist architecture. This film, taken from MACE's DVD release Regenerating Birmingham, is a total delight. I must have that DVD!
'Regenerating Birmingham' - DVD on sale now (Clip: The Bull Ring) from MACE Archive on Vimeo.
Thanks to Christopher Beanland for the tip-off.
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Poulson in the 21st Century
Here's four pics of Elizabeth House, Waterloo, designed by the practice of John Poulson and opened in the 1960s initially as one of the South Bank extensions to Whitehall. Poulson would later be sent to prison as being at the centre of the most spectacular network of bribery and corruption, one which brought down the Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling, and 'Mr Newcastle' T. Dan Smith.
Despite all that I've always rather liked Elizabeth House, the tower and two slab blocks have a simple elegance (if you ignore the tangled mess next to Waterloo Station itself) one that has been slowly eroded by chunks of render falling from the facade of the office tower. It's soon to be demolished to make way for an even more controversial development, David Chipperfield's 29 storey tower.
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Grade 1 Brutalism
Here's a short film made in 2013 for English Heritage's Brutal and Beautiful exhibition. It focuses on Denys Lasdun's grade one listed Royal College of Physicians, and is presented by Elain Harwood, Britain's foremost modern architecture expert. I can't wait to read her forthcoming book on the subject, sure to be utterly amazing.
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Events are overtaking me
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| Uh-oh. |
Firstly there's an event at Manchester Metropolitan University, 1st May 2014, called Manufacturing Utopia. It's a day long affair at Manchester Art Gallery, with a very interesting and hugely varied cast list discussing the theme of happiness in urban environments. Is the ideal urban environment within our reach or are cities losing their humanity? I'm going to be talking about three different postwar approaches to urban living, and what happened once they were built. This is where the absurd flyer image (above) comes from.
Then there's an event in Sheffield on the 6th May, details to follow.
After that I'm on a panel talking about Ian Nairn as part of an afternoon of film screenings at the Bristol Festival of Ideas on Sunday 11th May. Gillian Darley, who co-wrote the wonderful Ian Nairn: Words in Place is introducing the films, and also on the panel will be Owen Hatherley and Mayor of Bristol George Ferguson.
And finally I'm appearing at Boring 4, on the 31st May at Conway Hall, London. I suspect this is going to be the most fun, partly because I'm only speaking for ten minutes, and partly because it's half lecture, half stand-up, so much more within my comfort zone. I'm going to be talking about Ladybird's obsession with concrete. Sadly this event is already sold out.
My hope is, I'll manage to be interesting (even at Boring). I must try to keep my desire to turn everything into stand-up in check. As such, it's an intimidating series of things to be doing, but then we could all do with a kick up the arse now and again, right?
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Myths of the Near Past
I once had lunch with Ballard. I know, this seems preposterous to me, too. It was back in the early noughties when I worked for his publishers. Luckily there was a group of us, as I was too overawed to contribute much. All those years reading his books and then working on them, I'd never dreamed that one day I might actually meet him. When it happened I was struck by how gentle and generous he seemed, quite at odds with the image this film and his apocalyptic writing might give. He did get angry though, when recalling the urban myth sustained in almost all writing about him in the press, that Crash was inspired by the death of his wife in a car crash. It was utter bollocks, but still, in The Atrocity Exhibition, boundaries between truth and desire were blurred, and the press seemed to be unwittingly turning Ballard into one of his own creations. Which is Ballardian in its own right.
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Dirty Modern Scoundrel! - The Musical
I'm sure it hasn't escaped your notice that the film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels has recently been turned into a musical. In response, here's my treatment for a jukebox musical: Dirty Modern Scoundrel!
SCENE 1: Ask
The curtain raises to dry ice and 1941 wartime ruins, rubble and destruction. Assembled architects and planners still in Royal Engineers uniforms climb the rubble and hoist blueprints up flagpoles in a heroic defending-the-barricades Les Mis manner as urchins tug at their heroic tunics.
They sing Ask by The Smiths.
Sample lyric:
If it's not love
Then it's the bomb
That will bring us together
SCENE 2: Cities
We see a map of Britain lies flat on the stage, not unlike the one used by the weatherman on This Morning. Planner Patrick Abercrombie jumps about across the UK, spitting out plans for cites in an ever more frantic manner, his suit and monocle increasing in size with each verse.
He sings Cities by Talking Heads.
Sample lyric:
I got it figured out
There's good points and bad points
Find a city
Find myself a city to live in
SCENE 3: Build
Rival housing ministers Macmillan and Crossman duet, on a giant monopoly board adding more and more houses and hotels, eventually piling them up to form tower blocks.
They sing Build by The Housemartins.
Sample lyric: Build a house where we can stay
Add a new bit everyday
It's build a road for us to cross
Build us lots and lots and lots and lots and lots
SCENE 4: The English Motorway System
Stuck in a Little Chef on the Preston Bypass, Dame Evelyn Sharp serenades a horrified John Betjeman with her vision of the English Motorway System.
She sings The English Motorway System by Black Box Recorder.
Sample lyric: The English motorway system is beautiful and strange
It's been there forever, it's never going to change
It eliminates all diversions, it eliminates all emotions
All you got to do to stay alive is drive.
SCENE 5: Empire State Human
A giant Harry Hyams sings this while climbing Centre Point, Richard Seifert clutched helplessly in his hand, as he swipes angrily at rocket ships and rotodynes.
He sings Empire State Human by the Human League.
Sample lyric: Since I was very young I realised
I never wanted to be human size
So I avoid the crowds and traffic jams
They just remind me of how small I am
Because of this longing in my heart
I'm going to start the growing part
I'm going to grow now and never stop
Think like a mountain, grow to the top.
SCENE 6: Underpass
Colin Buchanan sings in the underpasses of Birmingham, accompanied by a shadowy array of 'helvetica men' from Margaret Calvert's road signage, digging roads, crossing for school and striding purposefully.
He sings Underpass by John Foxx.
Sample lyric: Well I used to remember
Now it's all gone
World War something
We were somebody's sons
Underpass!
INTERVAL. Drinks are available in the bar.
SCENE 7: Losing My Edge
Smoky Soho jazz club, 1957. Reyner Banham, Alison and Peter Smithson and Denys Lasdun caught in a frantic dance of death with their own ambition.
They singLosing My Edge by LCD Soundsystem.
Sample lyric:
I'm losing my edge.
The kids are coming up from behind.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids from France and from London.
But I was there.
SCENE 8: Concrete Jungle
Tyneside. Ian Nairn reveals his uneasiness about the rebuilding of the city from the roof of the Trinity Square Car Park. Behind him T. Dan Smith, dressed as a pierrot, weeps for his own fate in front of the bullzdozer from the Ashes to Ashes video.
He sings Concrete Jungle by Bob Marley and the Wailers.
Sample lyric: Won't someone tell me 'cause
Life (sweet life) must be (got to be) somewhere to be found (out there somewhere out there for me)
Instead of concrete jungle (Jungle, jungle, jungle!)
SCENE 9: The Village Green Preservation Society
In the leafy village of Covent Garden, Betjeman again, dressed as a morris dancer, ties Evelyn Sharp to a maypole while the middle class denizens of the city descend upon her like the cast of The Wicker Man.
They sing The Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks.
Sample lyric:
We are the skyscraper condemnation affiliate
God save tudor houses, antique tables and billiards
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do
God save the village green.
SCENE 10: The Man Who Sold the World
Reginald Maudling, T Dan Smith (still dressed as a pierrot) and Alan Maudsley in a Guys and Dolls-style stylised gambling den. As they sing John Poulson, dressed as Mr Mestopholes from Cats, builds a giant house of cards behind them, which falls down and flattens them all in a riot of subtle symbolism.
Guys and
They sing The Man Who Sold the World by Lulu.
Sample lyric:
SCENE 11: Ghost Town
Basil Spence sits in Coventry Cathedral, weeping over a model of his Gorbals Queen Elizabeth Square flats, while haunted by Peter and Alison Smithson who torment him by poking him with the pointy bit of their losing design for the cathedral.
He sings Ghost Town by The Specials.
Sample lyric:
Do you remember the good old days
Before the ghost town?
We danced and sang,
And the music played inna de boomtown
SCENE 12: Side Streets
The chorus sing the song from windows in the Red Road flats, which are demolished at the end of the song during the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony.
They sing Side Streets by Saint Etienne.
Sample lyric: The neighborhood that I live in,
I’ve always seen as home.
At certain times at the evening,
It’s like a no-go zone.
Got cash in my pocket to last the weekend.
And I’ve got features I quite like
And don’t mind keeping.
But I still walk the side streets home,
Even when I’m on my own.
If I let myself believe all the bad press and horror stories,
I wouldn’t set a foot outside.
CURTAIN.
Cast and crew to jump into giant taxi like the one from Ed Wood to escape audience seeking blood.
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SCENE 1: Ask
The curtain raises to dry ice and 1941 wartime ruins, rubble and destruction. Assembled architects and planners still in Royal Engineers uniforms climb the rubble and hoist blueprints up flagpoles in a heroic defending-the-barricades Les Mis manner as urchins tug at their heroic tunics.
They sing Ask by The Smiths.
Sample lyric:
If it's not love
Then it's the bomb
That will bring us together
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| If it's not love then it's the bomb that will bring them together. |
We see a map of Britain lies flat on the stage, not unlike the one used by the weatherman on This Morning. Planner Patrick Abercrombie jumps about across the UK, spitting out plans for cites in an ever more frantic manner, his suit and monocle increasing in size with each verse.
He sings Cities by Talking Heads.
Sample lyric:
I got it figured out
There's good points and bad points
Find a city
Find myself a city to live in
SCENE 3: Build
Rival housing ministers Macmillan and Crossman duet, on a giant monopoly board adding more and more houses and hotels, eventually piling them up to form tower blocks.
They sing Build by The Housemartins.
Sample lyric: Build a house where we can stay
Add a new bit everyday
It's build a road for us to cross
Build us lots and lots and lots and lots and lots
SCENE 4: The English Motorway System
Stuck in a Little Chef on the Preston Bypass, Dame Evelyn Sharp serenades a horrified John Betjeman with her vision of the English Motorway System.
She sings The English Motorway System by Black Box Recorder.
Sample lyric: The English motorway system is beautiful and strange
It's been there forever, it's never going to change
It eliminates all diversions, it eliminates all emotions
All you got to do to stay alive is drive.
SCENE 5: Empire State Human
A giant Harry Hyams sings this while climbing Centre Point, Richard Seifert clutched helplessly in his hand, as he swipes angrily at rocket ships and rotodynes.
He sings Empire State Human by the Human League.
Sample lyric: Since I was very young I realised
I never wanted to be human size
So I avoid the crowds and traffic jams
They just remind me of how small I am
Because of this longing in my heart
I'm going to start the growing part
I'm going to grow now and never stop
Think like a mountain, grow to the top.
SCENE 6: Underpass
Colin Buchanan sings in the underpasses of Birmingham, accompanied by a shadowy array of 'helvetica men' from Margaret Calvert's road signage, digging roads, crossing for school and striding purposefully.
He sings Underpass by John Foxx.
Sample lyric: Well I used to remember
Now it's all gone
World War something
We were somebody's sons
Underpass!
INTERVAL. Drinks are available in the bar.
SCENE 7: Losing My Edge
Smoky Soho jazz club, 1957. Reyner Banham, Alison and Peter Smithson and Denys Lasdun caught in a frantic dance of death with their own ambition.
They singLosing My Edge by LCD Soundsystem.
Sample lyric:
I'm losing my edge.
The kids are coming up from behind.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids from France and from London.
But I was there.
SCENE 8: Concrete Jungle
Tyneside. Ian Nairn reveals his uneasiness about the rebuilding of the city from the roof of the Trinity Square Car Park. Behind him T. Dan Smith, dressed as a pierrot, weeps for his own fate in front of the bullzdozer from the Ashes to Ashes video.
He sings Concrete Jungle by Bob Marley and the Wailers.
Sample lyric: Won't someone tell me 'cause
Life (sweet life) must be (got to be) somewhere to be found (out there somewhere out there for me)
Instead of concrete jungle (Jungle, jungle, jungle!)
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| T Dan Smith (centre) has never done good things, he's never done bad things, he's never done anything out of the blue. |
In the leafy village of Covent Garden, Betjeman again, dressed as a morris dancer, ties Evelyn Sharp to a maypole while the middle class denizens of the city descend upon her like the cast of The Wicker Man.
They sing The Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks.
Sample lyric:
We are the skyscraper condemnation affiliate
God save tudor houses, antique tables and billiards
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do
God save the village green.
SCENE 10: The Man Who Sold the World
Reginald Maudling, T Dan Smith (still dressed as a pierrot) and Alan Maudsley in a Guys and Dolls-style stylised gambling den. As they sing John Poulson, dressed as Mr Mestopholes from Cats, builds a giant house of cards behind them, which falls down and flattens them all in a riot of subtle symbolism.
Guys and
They sing The Man Who Sold the World by Lulu.
Sample lyric:
We passed upon the stair, we spoke of was and when
Although I wasn't there, he said I was his friend
Which came as some surprise I spoke into his eyes
I thought you died alone, a long, long time ago
Although I wasn't there, he said I was his friend
Which came as some surprise I spoke into his eyes
I thought you died alone, a long, long time ago
Oh no, not me
I never lost control
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world
I never lost control
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world
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| T. Dan Smith, John Poulson, Alan Maudsley, Reginald Maudling and associates. |
Basil Spence sits in Coventry Cathedral, weeping over a model of his Gorbals Queen Elizabeth Square flats, while haunted by Peter and Alison Smithson who torment him by poking him with the pointy bit of their losing design for the cathedral.
He sings Ghost Town by The Specials.
Sample lyric:
Do you remember the good old days
Before the ghost town?
We danced and sang,
And the music played inna de boomtown
SCENE 12: Side Streets
The chorus sing the song from windows in the Red Road flats, which are demolished at the end of the song during the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony.
They sing Side Streets by Saint Etienne.
Sample lyric: The neighborhood that I live in,
I’ve always seen as home.
At certain times at the evening,
It’s like a no-go zone.
Got cash in my pocket to last the weekend.
And I’ve got features I quite like
And don’t mind keeping.
But I still walk the side streets home,
Even when I’m on my own.
If I let myself believe all the bad press and horror stories,
I wouldn’t set a foot outside.
CURTAIN.
Cast and crew to jump into giant taxi like the one from Ed Wood to escape audience seeking blood.
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Ten incredible postwar modernist pieces by Pathé
Now that British Pathé have shared their incredible archive on YouTube I thought I'd pick out a few highlights of their modernist coverage. It's basically Boring Postcards that move.
1. Firstly, here's pristine Stevenage, one of the first postwar new towns filmed here in 1959 shortly after the town centre was finally opened to the public.
2. Next up we have this amazing footage of futuristic Miami from 1949. It even ends with a Britain Can Make It gag.
3. Then there's some dizzying silent footage from 1968, shot in Bonn, then the West German capital.
4. This is Tomorrow (1956) was the sensational art exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, that featured work by everyone from the Smithsons to Richard Hamilton. Here's Pathé's take on the show.
5. Plans for a triple-decker makeover to Piccadilly Circus in London were unveiled in this optimistic 1968 report.
6. Then there's some incredible silent slum clearance and construction footage from the 1970s.
7. From the same period, here's some very odd but amazing footage of a tanned Basil Spence and his barracks, among other buildings.
8. Back to the new towns now, here's Harlow and Milton Ketnes in the late 60s, one almost finshed, the other barely begun.
9. Now for one of the most extraordinary buildings, Habitat from the 1967 Montreal Expo.
10. And lastly, for this little collection, here's an article on two modern schools in Paddington and Kidbrooke, from 1954, right in the hart of the school building boom.
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Ronan Point on film
Here's a couple of newsreels from the late 60s following the Ronan Point collapse in Newham, May 1968, in which four people died. The first is a report on how the borough had changed all of their tower blocks over from gas to electricity following the gas explosion that triggered the collapse.
The second film is unused footage of residents leaving Merritt Point, one of Ronan Point's neighbours. Shot in 1969 this was to allow safety checks and stengthening work. You can see the now scaffolded up Ronan Point in these shots. Amazingly, not only did residents move back into Merritt Point, they also returned to Ronan Point, though it was eventually demolished and the rubble used beneath the runway at City Airport.
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FuckYeahNewEmpiricism - a top ten
So fuckyeahbrutalism is obviously A Thing. But I think I might be unable to resist the pull of New Empiricism, essentially a competing modernist ideology of the mid-twentieth century characterised initially by Swedish welfare state design. Unlike Brutalism it's not flash or out there. It's, as the Swedish welfare state suggests, gentle and sober and sensible. It's all about humanising detail rather than brutal functionalism. And in the UK this form of polite modernism has been more or less ignored, even though there's tons of it everywhere, from schools and hospitals to point blocks and flats. So here's a top ten celebrating the joys of the overlooked and underfooked: fuckyeahnewempiricism.
1. Lansbury Estate
2. The Lawns
3. Broadgate
4. Bracknell
5. Ackroydon Estate
6. Kidbrooke Comprehensive
7. Congress House
8. Lordship Lane Estate
9. Stevenage Town Square
10. New Addington
1. Lansbury Estate
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| The Lansbury Estate was the live architecture exhibit for the Festival of Britain. Constructed in a comprehensive development area in Poplar and designed by Frederick Gibberd, the estate was thought to be somewhat of a disappointment on completion, not feeling quite modern or exciting enough. But it's stood the test of time and Chrisp Street Market is still hugely popular. And yes it is named after Labour MP George Lansbury, Angela's grandad. Pic from here. |
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| The Lawns, Harlow. Britain's first point block, and, as regular readers of this blog will know, somewhat of an obsession. Frederick Gibberd may have relieved some of the shock people felt about it by adding lots of irregular detail, starting from the clamshell shape of the plan. |
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| Broadgate, Coventry. Broadgate was Coventry's first major piece of reconstruction after the Blitz, civic architecture in the centre of the city bounding a square. It was opened in 1948 by Princess Margaret, and a key part of planner Donald Gibson's vision for the new city centre, leading off to pedestrian precincts, so experimental at the time. Photo. |
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| Bracknell is like a miniature version of fifties Coventry. It's all underpasses from the station to the low rise town centre. Designated a new town in 1949, its town centre is currently being knocked about for modernisation. There's tons of pretty postwar murals and details set to go. Town planning in Bracknell has received much attention thanks to The Wrong Mans. |
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| Ackroydon Estate was one of the first major postwar housing estates in London, designed by Robert Matthew's team at the London County Council in 1950. This pic is of one of the point blocks, but it's perhaps the smaller t-shaped blocks that most hark back to a Scandinavian heritage. Picture. |
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| Kidbrooke School was one of the first purpose-built comprehensives, opening in 1954. It's perhaps in school design that New Empiricism was really to have its day, the combination of functional space with friendly detailing and colour perfect for the job. Picture. |
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| Congress House, home of the TUC, was the only other major public building completed in the age and style of the Festival Hall. It's one of my favourite buildings, from these Bauhaus-y balconies to the curving walls of aquamarine tiles and beautiful wood-panelled function rooms, it's a masterpiece. It's just yards from where I work, so I try to walk by every day just get an extra fix of slinky New Empiricism at its best. |
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| Lordship Lane Estate. When it comes to cute detailing on municipal flats, it doesn't get much better than the 1950s Camberwell Council-designed blocks that form the Lordship Lane Estate in East Dulwich. The balconies are every bit as quirky as the boxes in the Festival Hall. Pitched roofs have been added to the buildings, but it doesn't look off because of the use of acute and obtuse angles in the original design. The landscaping, upkeep and situation of the estate next to Dulwich Park has meant that it's among the most handsome in London. |
9. Stevenage Town Square
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| Stevenage Town Square is a great example of the mild modernism of the early new towns, such as Crawley or Hatfield. Low-rise, propped up on spindly stilts, and with a slightly jaunty air, the town square compliments the (more famous) clock tower and fountains. Great article, from which this postcard is taken from, at the ever-brilliant Municipal Dreams. |
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| New Addington. Naturally, I can't complete a list without boring on about my home town, and here's an example of developer-led mini point-blocks from North Downs, with jaunty balconies in a Festival-style. There's such a variety of these on the estate because there was both a bit of a developers free-for-all to hit the numbers of homes needed, combined with the pressure of being in the green belt, so that post-1955 pretty much all building had to be done within the existing boundaries of the estate. New Addington is way more New Empiricist than Brutalist, which probably explains this blog. |
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Millbank Tower... in the beginning
Millbank Tower, the curvaceous sixties skyscraper and low-rise complex along the Thames between Westminster and Pimlico, has been a feature of the news for the past few decades, firstly as home to the Labour Party's fearsome 1990s election machine and now home to the Conservatives operation. But initially it was designed for someone quite different: Vickers, the armaments manufacturers, famous for projects like the wartime Wellington Bomber, the Vickers machine gun and the Viscount postwar airliner. In the mid-fifties they commissioned Ronald Ward and Partners to design their London offices, the company who also designed Dungeness Lighthouse and the Nestle building in Croydon, Mowlem bulit it, and here's a film of their topping out ceremony in 1961.
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Civic Pride and Joy
King Olav of Norway opened Newcastle Civic Centre in 1968, and naturally Pathe News was on hand to record the occasion. No sign of 'Mr Newcastle' T. Dan Smith, though, perhaps he was away at one of his many trials.
Designed by City Architect George Kenyon, the Civic Centre is a glorious piece of modernism at the heart of the city. It's not hard to see echoes of the work of Basil Spence and Federick Gibberd here. There's a rather grand modernist crown on the tower, topped with seahorses, and the design has an appropriately Scandinavian air for a city twinned with Bergen. There's also a Victor Pasmore mural inside, presumably appearing as part of a North-East job lot alongside his pavilion in Peterlee.
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Designed by City Architect George Kenyon, the Civic Centre is a glorious piece of modernism at the heart of the city. It's not hard to see echoes of the work of Basil Spence and Federick Gibberd here. There's a rather grand modernist crown on the tower, topped with seahorses, and the design has an appropriately Scandinavian air for a city twinned with Bergen. There's also a Victor Pasmore mural inside, presumably appearing as part of a North-East job lot alongside his pavilion in Peterlee.
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| (c) www.panoramio.com |
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| (c) https://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_leithead/ |
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Rotherhithe and Bermondsey's best
I pass these three estates on the train every day between New Cross Gate and London Bridge. I've always been intrigued by them, so one morning I hopped off at Surrey Quays and went for an explore and took some snaps of them: the Hawkstone and Abbeyfield Estates in Rotherhithe, and the Rennie Estate on the other side of the tracks, in Bermondsey.
Immediately as I left Surrey Quays station, there was my first target: the Hawkstone Estate. Designed in 1958, in very similar style to Robert Matthew's Gorbals Riverside estate of the same vintage, there's a mixture of tower blocks and low rise flats and maisonettes here. The first tower block to be finished here bears a sign of the times: John F. Kennedy House. They were built by Wates between 1958 and 1965.
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Then I walked down under the railway arches to the Rennie Estate, a mixture of low-rise fifties blocks, and high rise 60s towers, all built in brick. They were constructed by direct labour for Bermondsey council, and all betray a throwback design style, with the lower deck-access blocks looking almost pre-war in their simplicity, and the towers looking like something out of a point block pattern book from 1949. They're the kind of gently modernistic flats I recognise from New Addington.
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Finally I walked back to another Wates estate, this one built in the late sixties: the Abbeyfield Estate, on the edge of Southwark Park. Again there's a mixture of high and low rise here, ranging from another 30s-style but 50s-built block, Bradley House, with its checkerboard gables, through to some brutalist rough concrete low rise flats and then the giant tower, Maydew House, opened in 1968. There are marked similarities here between the Wates design and that of Goldfinger's Brutalist blocks Balfron and Trellick, not least the separated 'service' tower and use of rough concrete, though Goldfinger was a major critic of large panel systems of the kind used by Wates.
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Immediately as I left Surrey Quays station, there was my first target: the Hawkstone Estate. Designed in 1958, in very similar style to Robert Matthew's Gorbals Riverside estate of the same vintage, there's a mixture of tower blocks and low rise flats and maisonettes here. The first tower block to be finished here bears a sign of the times: John F. Kennedy House. They were built by Wates between 1958 and 1965.
Then I walked down under the railway arches to the Rennie Estate, a mixture of low-rise fifties blocks, and high rise 60s towers, all built in brick. They were constructed by direct labour for Bermondsey council, and all betray a throwback design style, with the lower deck-access blocks looking almost pre-war in their simplicity, and the towers looking like something out of a point block pattern book from 1949. They're the kind of gently modernistic flats I recognise from New Addington.
Finally I walked back to another Wates estate, this one built in the late sixties: the Abbeyfield Estate, on the edge of Southwark Park. Again there's a mixture of high and low rise here, ranging from another 30s-style but 50s-built block, Bradley House, with its checkerboard gables, through to some brutalist rough concrete low rise flats and then the giant tower, Maydew House, opened in 1968. There are marked similarities here between the Wates design and that of Goldfinger's Brutalist blocks Balfron and Trellick, not least the separated 'service' tower and use of rough concrete, though Goldfinger was a major critic of large panel systems of the kind used by Wates.
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10 amazing official postwar plans
The official story of postwar planning and rebuilding got written over and over. There were the pre-war and forties plans for cities such as London and Plymouth, the fifties and sixties versions of the rebuilding by the architects of the day, and then the later official reports on the great schemes, such as new towns. Written variously as propaganda, manifestos and self-justification, these books are a fascinating glimpse into the confidence and excitement of postwar planning and architecture. Here's a selection of ten of my favourites, used extensively in research for Concretopia.
1. A Plan for Plymouth, 1943, by Patrick Abercombie and J. Paton Watson.
Famously devastated in the blitz, the post of Plymouth in Devon called in Britain's foremost planner and monocle wearer Patrick Abercombie to replan the city fit for the postwar world. His plan and the progress of rebuilding was documented in Jill Craigie's 1946 film The Way We Live.
2. The County of London Plan, 1943, by Patrick Abercrombie and John Henry Forshaw.
The daddy of all wartime rebuilding plans, this was breakthrough for Abercrombie: former head of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, champion of the green belt and Liverpool University professor. He was subsequently asked to produce a number of other influential city plans.
3. Our Birmingham, 1943.
Other cities weren't fussed by the Abercombie bandwagon and ploughed their own furrow. Birmingham City Council here took its citizens on a whistle-stop tour through the history and proposed future of the city, where zeilenbau-style towers loomed over the skyline.
4. Coventry: the Development Plan, 1951, by Donald Gibson, Charles Barratt and A. H. Marshall.
On a much more modest scale than Plymouth's bumper effort, fellow blitzed city Coventry had been planning for rebuilding even before the blitz, and this short book, aimed primarily at schoolkids, takes you through the ideas in a rather plodding format considering how exciting it must have been to imagine the contents at the time. Contains some stylish illustrations of buildings already planned and in some cases, like the Broadgate, built.
5. The Festival of Britain Guide, 1951.
The most exciting story in early postwar architecture was the Festival of Britain, and here in the original guidebook to the exhibits, the organisers led by Gerald Barry had the opportunity to explore and describe their show in a bit of depth. Each pavillion is discussed, and the route around the south bank site is described. It also contains some amazing adverts from the time, which help place it even more in the historical moment.
6. Pheonix in Coventry, 1962, by Basil Spence.
When Basil Spence won the competition to design Coventry Cathedral he was on the verge of being consigned to history as merely a designer of exhibition pavilions. This massive and symbolically important project catapulted him to worldwide fame, and here he talks about the making of a work of art, from the architecture through to the individual commissions for windows, tapestry and sculpture. His warm, witty, avuncular voice makes this one of the most enjoyable (if unreliable) books on the list, suitably so for a man who could have sat quite happily between Arthur Marshall and Frank Muir on Call My Bluff.
7. Traffic in Towns, 1963, by Colin Buchanan.
One of the most significant books published in the postwar period on planning, this is the Buchanan report for the government on the growing threat to cars on our towns, and what we could do about it. Favouring keeping pedestrians and cars apart on walkways, different levels, bridges and underpasses, his ideas for creating pedestrian decks were taken up by many city centre designers, though few plans were completed that matched the ambition Buchanan had, with perhaps only some of the later new towns like Cumbernauld truly separating pedestrians and traffic as much as he would have liked. Features incredible drawings by Kenneth Browne.
8. New Life in Old Towns, 1967, by RMJM.
Another government report here, this time into the idea of regenerating existing homes instead of demolishing them. Particularly fascinating that this report was written by researched from RMJM, the company set up by Robert Matthew, arch-modernsit of the LCC and Gorbals redevelopments, and by the early 70s saviour of Edinburgh's Georgian architecture. As an object it couldn't look more 1967.
9. Collapse of Flats at Ronan Point, Canning Town, 1968 by Hugh Griffiths QC.
A rather more sobering report here, this is the inquiry into the partial collapse of flats at Ronan Court, caused by a faulty gas fitting in the 18th floor, but exacerbated by sloppy construction techniques and a misuse of a bulding system, Larssen Nielsen, designed only for low rise buildings and not 22 storey blocks. This incident and the inquest into the four deaths it caused would change the government's position on the building of high flats and the subsidies available to promote their construction.
10. The New Towns Story, 1970, by Frank Schaffer.
Frank had spent his career in central government overseeing the construction of new towns. This book is his overview of the project as a whole, more than he'd expected, as by 1976 the whole scheme had been abandoned, the funding going instead into the inner cities. It's as geeky as you'd like, full of stats and so a version of New Town Top Trumps is made possible.
BONUS TIME! 11. Harlow: The Story of a New Town, 1980, by Frederick Gibberd, Ben Hyde Harvey and Len White.
Harlow was one of the first new towns, and many of the projects had official histories written as their development corporations were wound up. In this one planner and architect Gibberd gives up a lot of his thinking for the layout and structure of the town, and that's supplemented by both sumptuous photos of the town its prime (much of which now has been completely altered, or in the case of the photo below, demolished), and loads of anecdote from other workers and residents.
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Concretopia - the paperback!
On the 8th July the paperback edition of Concretopia is released. Donna Payne has adapted her brilliant cover design and Old Street editor Ben Yarde-Buller and I have gone through and made some corrections to the text. Nothing so grand as a new edition, just a little tidying up.
I've been quite amazed by the interest in the book, and hugely grateful for all of the support there's been. Thank you to everyone who's already read it and have enthused, it's really made a difference. It's been smashing to meet people at events and I hope to do more. Do let me know if you'd like me to do a talk or event – get in touch @Grindrod on Twitter.
The paperback is available for pre-order on Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles, and will be on sale from those beautiful indie bookshops like the Bookseller Crow in Crystal Palace who have made all the difference.
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Basildon - Our Town
Hello. I'm a narrator with a plummy voice and I'm going to talk to you about Basildon in Essex.
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This little oddity traces how Basildon grew from self-built shacks and roughly built roads to an official new town after the war. Here it's 1974, and like the town itself, this film is a strange collision of amateur and professional. It was made by pupils from Woodlands School with help from Basildon Council's PR department, and so there's a mix of suavely professional voice-over with an oddly jumpy narrative. Having said that, it may have been filmed by kids but it's pretty similar to the professionally made promo films for the other new towns, and well worth a watch.
This little oddity traces how Basildon grew from self-built shacks and roughly built roads to an official new town after the war. Here it's 1974, and like the town itself, this film is a strange collision of amateur and professional. It was made by pupils from Woodlands School with help from Basildon Council's PR department, and so there's a mix of suavely professional voice-over with an oddly jumpy narrative. Having said that, it may have been filmed by kids but it's pretty similar to the professionally made promo films for the other new towns, and well worth a watch.
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Kitten Kong
Days after a terrorist attack on the Post Office Tower in 1971, the BBC showed this episode of The Goodies: Kitten Kong. The kitten, Twinkle, is grown to enormous size by Graeme Garden, and goes on the rampage through London. Alongside stamping on Michael Aspel, Twinkle's mauling of the Post Office Tower is one of the most memorable moments of the entire series, and is still brilliant today.
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Top Ten pics from the JR James Archive
The University of Sheffield has put one of the most wonderful archives of photos online: pristine postwar modernism photographed and collected by J. R. 'Jimmy' James, former Professor of Town and Regional Planning and Chief Planner at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. View the archive here.
It's a treasure trove of photos, maps and plans, for which we have to thank the tireless digitising by Philip Brown and Joseph Carr – MPlan graduates of the Department of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield. From the incredible archive I've chosen ten pics I particularly love, all of them (c) the University of Sheffield.
J. R. 'Jimmy' James is not be confused with Jimmy James and the Vagabonds. But still, now is the time, eh?
It's a treasure trove of photos, maps and plans, for which we have to thank the tireless digitising by Philip Brown and Joseph Carr – MPlan graduates of the Department of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield. From the incredible archive I've chosen ten pics I particularly love, all of them (c) the University of Sheffield.
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| 1. South East expansion sites, 1960s |
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| 2. Crawley industrial estate, 1971 |
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| 3. Model of Runcorn town centre |
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| 4. Stevenage town centre, 1960s |
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| 5. Cumbernauld road bridge and block |
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| 6. Plans for the rebuilding of the North bank of the Thames, 1960s |
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| 7. Newcastle Haymarket plans, 1960s |
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| 8. University of East Anglia under construction |
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| 9. Hyde Park in Sheffield |
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| 10. The Hill, Coventry |
J. R. 'Jimmy' James is not be confused with Jimmy James and the Vagabonds. But still, now is the time, eh?
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