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Balfron Tower Poplar London UK 2008
Balfron Tower, Poplar, London, a 27-storey brutalist tower block designed by Ernö Goldfinger. Photograph: Construction Photography/Alamy
Balfron Tower, Poplar, London, a 27-storey brutalist tower block designed by Ernö Goldfinger. Photograph: Construction Photography/Alamy

Modernism in Britain: did it stand the test of time?

This article is more than 8 years old

Britain’s postwar estates fell rapidly from grace, yet for many today they are much-loved homes. Douglas Murphy looks back at an architectural utopian dream

“Living in a high-rise block does not force all its inhabitants to become criminals, but by creating anonymity, lack of surveillance and escape routes, it puts temptation in their way and makes it probable that some of the weaker brethren will succumb.”

So wrote Alice Coleman, geographer at King’s College London, in her 1985 book, Utopia on Trial. This marked the nadir of the reputation of the UK’s modern houses, built sporadically between the wars and in massive numbers in the 30 years after. Coleman and her team ran round London housing estates counting instances of graffiti, litter and pissy lifts and decided that modern housing was all wrong, urban planning was impossible and that the “natural selection” of the free market meant little homes with little gardens were a way of living that was impossible (maybe even immoral) to improve upon.

Utopia on Trial perfectly ventriloquised the attitude to housing of that era’s establishment and it remains a testament to just how far common-sense opinion had changed from the heady optimism of the 1960s. From a source of welfarist pride, hand in hand with the NHS, modernist and in particular council housing had by the 80s been stigmatised so thoroughly that it was possible for Thatcher’s government to practically end its construction altogether. As far as housing was concerned, architects were aloof, contractors were spivs, councillors were on the take and only the steady miracle of “what people really want” – meaning suburban cul-de-sacs built by developers – could rescue the industry.

But beyond all this, one startling thing remains true: the postwar period in housing was one of the very few times in history that Britain has been at the cutting edge of architecture. UK architects may not have been the initial innovators of new forms of housing, and they may not have been the most prolific, but they led the world in a number of ways. In the years after the war, a great many architecture students undertook pilgrimages to the continent and especially the south of France, where they went to see Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation, one of the first major European post-war buildings and the primary source for much of the world’s high-rise housing of that era. Upon graduation, the best jobs were frequently to be had in local government, and inspired young men and women joined organisations such as the London County Council, where new thinking was very much the order of the day, and estates such as Alton West experimented with European ideas such as slab blocks and point towers.

As time went on, a new generation upped the level of experimentation further. Under the influence of the iconoclastic Alison and Peter Smithson, Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith designed Park Hill in Sheffield. This sprawling complex of more than a thousand flats challenged the Corbusian orthodoxy and endeavoured to recreate the positive spatial character of traditional working-class housing, while eliminating the horrible aspects of slum living. Spiralling down from a position overlooking the centre of Sheffield, this complex famously incorporated “deck access”. Better known as “streets in the sky”, this was an approach whereby flats were entered from communal platforms running through the estate, and was judged to be an improvement on the dark central corridors of the Corbusian model.

Another import from abroad, and perhaps the one that contributed most to the bad reputation of modern housing, was the introduction of system-building techniques. In the years following the second world war, the housing situation remained critical, with bomb damage scarring the cities and millions of people still living in appalling conditions. New developments in prefabrication originating from Denmark and France offered a way to accelerate drastically the production of homes. For a while at least, British architecture was at the cutting edge of housing design, more innovative than both more capitalist and socialist countries.

But this just meant that there was further to fall. The Ronan Point disaster of 1968, where a gas explosion caused the progressive collapse of a panel-built tower, marked the beginning of the end for advanced British housing. Over the next 20 years, the system-building boom unravelled, as estate after estate was found to have been seriously bodged by contractors. Rain ran down the inside of walls, vermin infested entire blocks, black mould appeared everywhere, concrete fell off the walkways; a litany of ineptitude meant that, in some cases, estates had to be demolished after less than 25 years.

Chamberlin, Powell and Bon’s Golden Lane estate, built 10 years before the Barbican, is still 50% inhabited by council tenants. Photograph: Stefi Orazi

There were, however, still estates that shone through. Chamberlin, Powell and Bon’s rugged, concrete Barbican has stood the test of time brilliantly, and now stands as a remarkably concise statement of the overall vision for modern housing – well-built houses with expert design making the most of the limited space of high-density living, with leisure and cultural facilities as integral parts of the overall vision. Across the road, the earlier Golden Lane estate by the same architects remains more than 50% inhabited by council tenants, suggesting that it isn’t the wealthier residents who make the difference.

Works that most clearly demonstrate the power and quality of the British contribution to housing were built in north London by the Camden council architects’ department. Under Sydney Cook, from the mid-1960s they created some of the most sophisticated and accomplished housing estates in the world, under very challenging conditions. Again, the models came from abroad, but what these young designers created using them is astounding.

From the late 50s, a new stop on the architectural tour of Europe was a small settlement outside Bern called Halen. Developed and built by the Swiss practice Atelier 5, this housing estate turned many Corbusian ideas on their head, while retaining a total commitment to modernity. Halen is an experiment in high-density housing that remains resolutely low rise, with densely packed family houses arranged around communal facilities. What British architects realised was that these ideas could allow for a synthesis between the ideas and aims of modern housing and the traditional urban patterns whose intrinsic worth was becoming more and more cherished.

What Cook and architects such as Neave Brown, Gordon Benson and Alan Forsyth achieved were new, estates that fitted closely into the existing urban fabric, while increasing the amount of green space and number of trees on the site. The flats themselves use space ingeniously, with large balconies, sliding internal partitions and full height windows, while in daily life neighbours greet each other on the walkways and the children play outside unsupervised. Some of the Camden estates, including Branch Hill, Alexandra Road and Fleet Road, have now been listed, the establishment belatedly recognising their historic significance, but no housing of this quality, designed for ordinary people, has been built since.

What is it, precisely, about these homes that appeals for the residents featured in Stefi Orazi’s new book? Much boils down to taste. There are those who have the money to make the choice, for whom yet another Victorian terrace is of no real interest, and the flowing spaces, expansive glazing and modernist planning of high-quality postwar housing fit perfectly with an interest in modular furniture and Swiss graphic design, perhaps a bit of atonal music and abstract art as well.

But underneath this stylistic question there are deeper cultural issues – about who builds housing and for what purpose, about the role of technology in the fabric of daily life and about how humanity should address the future. Modernist housing is the result of an era in architecture of soberly optimistic considerations of what humans were capable of, and how they might live together, and the dreams of the period can still be sensed in the concrete of its houses.

Modernist Estates: The buildings and the people who live in them today by Stefi Orazi is published by Frances Lincoln (£25). To buy it for £20 click here

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