SAVING BRUTALIST ARCHITECTURE Re-imagining Robin Hood Gardens through the experience of Park Hill.
Ivan Chin Newcastle University
NCL
For the partial fulfillment of the Architecture BA Honours
Acknowledgement ..................................................................... Abstract ...................................................................................
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Illustrations .....................................................................
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Introduction .....................................................................
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The Smithsons’ Vision
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2. 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4
The Park Hill Ambition ....................................................... The Decline of Park Hill ....................................................... Enter Urban Splash ....................................................... The New Purpose of Park Hill ......................................... Continual Discourse .......................................................
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Re-imagining Robin Hood Gardens .........................................
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Conclusion ..................................................................................
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Bibliography ..................................................................................
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Fig. 1: Previous page, view from the sunken “moat” of Robin Hood Gardens. Added protection from the Automobile.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
ABSTRACT
I am grateful for the assistance of the following people; Simon Smithson from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Natalie Heron from Sheffield City Council, David Lewis from Urban Splash and the Newcastle University Library staff.
Robin Hood Gardens, London, is a Brutalist social housing estate built to the postwar designs of Alison and Peter Smithson. It has recently been set for demolition but there is hope from the experience at a direct comparison, the Park Hill Estate. The dissertation argues how the present-day treatment of Modernist housing blocks needs to be rethought, in particular with the loss of tangible and intangible heritage. Through the lessons learnt from Urban Splash’s refurbishment of Park Hill: five interlinked points on how to create a positive future for Robin Hood Gardens and other threatened estates. First, all venerable housing blocks should be listed, to disallow easy removal for intangible heritage to be realised. Second, the physical state of the building does not necessarily represent the intangible value, whose values cannot be defined by conventional means. Third, as a concept to keep part of the the physical fabric to visually remind of the past. Fourth, it is argued, that architecture is adaptable to its situation, not all versions of this experience have to follow the Park Hill model. Fifth, a concept is laid to preserve the controversy, that will continue to build a comprehensive social context.
Special thanks are due to Professor Graham Farmer, whose passion, knowledge and experience have been fundamental in the completion of this dissertation.
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ILLUSTRATIONS Cover page: Figure 1:
Figure 2: Figure 3: Figure 4: Figure 5: Figure 6: Figure 7: Figure 8: Figure 9: Figure 10:
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Robin Hood Gardens. Photograph, Author. View from the sunken “moat” of Robin Hood Gardens. Added protection from the Automobile. Photograph by Jay Bracey. [Online Image] Available at: [accessed 8 August 2015]. Robin Hood Lane street sign, Photograph, Author. The Ronan Point Partial Collapse. Adrian Forty, Concrete and Culture (London: Reaktion, 2012), p. 161. The state of Robin Hood Gardens, Photograph, Author. Signs of in-habitation and tenants’ use of their own parts of the “street”. Anthony Pangaro, ‘Beyond Golden Lane, Robin Hood Gardens’, Architecture Plus, 1973, p. 41. Robin Hood Gardens and its difficult surroundings: Traffic and noise. Marco Vidotto, Alison + Peter Smithson (Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili, 1997), p. 124. Provisions of a safe, protected and ample landscaped garden. Ibid., p. 125 A picture of the Smithsons at work. Alan Powers, Sandra Lousada and Ioana Marinescu, Robin Hood Gardens Re-Visions (London: Twentieth Century Society, 2010), p. 54. The “acoustic” wall that was to “protect” RHG from the automobile. Anthony Pangaro, ‘Beyond Golden Lane, Robin Hood Gardens’, Architecture Plus, 1973, p. 45. Photo-montage of the “streets-in-the-sky” of the Golden Lane submission coming to life, Peter Smithson. Alison Smithson and others, Alison And Peter Smithson - From The House Of The Future To House Of Today (Rotterdam: 010 Publ., 2004), p. 67. A comparison of the spacious kitchens in the Park Hill flats to the back-to-back terraces it replaced. Andrew Saint, Park Hill: What’s Next? (London: The Architectural Association, 1996), p. 17. The Unité d’ Habitation in Marseilles, the concrete shimmers here like travertine limestone in the Mediterranean climate. Le Corbusier, The Marseilles Block (London: Harvill Press, 1953), p. 6. The interior corridor of the Unité, which British Modernists reformed for their “streets-in-the-sky”. David Jenkins, Unité D’habitation, Marseilles (London: Phaidon Press, 1993), p. 17.
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Figure 15: Figure 16: Figure 17: Figure 18: Figure 19: Figure 20: Figure 21: Figure 22:
Figure 23: Figure 24: Figure 25: Figure 26: Figure 27: Figure 28:
Figure 29: Figure 30:
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Park Hill Estate, site plan showing the external courtyards and its continuity as a united building (and street decks). Andrew Saint, Park Hill: What’s Next? (London: The Architectural Association, 1996), p. 12. Ibid., p. 17. Children playing in the Park Hill courtyards. Ellis Woodman and Ivor Smith, Exemplary Housing Estate Regeneration in Europe (The Architects’ Journal, 2015), p. 4. The Park Hill wall plaque covered with graffiti. Peter Tuffrey, Sheffield Flats (United Kingdom: Fonthill, 2013), p. 69. The decay of Park Hill’s spalling concrete. Photograph, Author. The Park Hill comparison. Photomontage, Author. A 29-metre tall, iconic mirrored helical staircase at the entrance of Park Hill. Photograph, Author. The new Park Hill by Urban Splash with ample deluxe details. Photograph, Author. Illustration from The Guardian transcribing social problems. Available at: [accessed 08 August 2015]. The Park Hill Phase-II refurbishment, entitling a large scale landscaping redevelopment. Photograph, Author. The rubble of the Park Hill overhaul. Keith Collie, Park Hill, Sheffield (Herne Bay: Categorial Books, 2012), p. 32. The preservation and celebrative expression of the original Brutalist concrete in the flats. Photograph, Author. The old Park Hill and contemporary refurbishment in the background. Photograph, Author. The post-war destruction in Sheffield. Peter Tuffrey, Sheffield Flats (United Kingdom: Fonthill, 2013), p. 25. The original Park Hill Estate and the new architect’s impression for the renewal. [accessed 08 August 2015]. “Streets-in-the-sky” at Robin Hood Gardens. Archive photo, Robin Hood Gardens Re-Visions (London: Twentieth Century Society, 2010). The spacious, refurbished flats of Park Hill. Photograph, Author.
INTRODUCTION
Fig. 2: Robin Hood Lane street sign. Robin Hood Gardens (hereinafter RHG) was built during the post-war years in the desolate industrial landscape of the Poplar district in London; by the architects Alison and Peter Smithson. It was a culmination of the Smithsons’ work on housing, built to be high quality housing and ‘a new enjoyable way of living’. Three requirements for the new development were given by the Tower Hamlets Council: a site zoning at 136 persons to the acre; the solution of an ‘open-space deficiency’ in the area, and a need to protect living rooms and bedrooms from the noise of adjacent traffic1, principles by which RHG was built to in 1972. Most, if not all, architects and architectural historians with an interest in twentieth century architecture are familiar with the project. Whether RHG is a monstrosity or symbolic of the era is entirely dependant on the perspective of the observer. Critics though have found that the project appears to have been an emblematic failure, and yet its demolition and struggle for listing have sparked off a passionate debate, the development is currently planned to be demolished by late 2016 and replaced in the new Blackwall Reach development.2 On the other hand, Richard Rogers and Simon Smithson are gathering support for a listing bid – put in by the Twentieth Century Society – for Robin Hood Gardens.3 This opens up
1 Alan Powers, Robin Hood Gardens Re-Visions (London: Twentieth Century Society, 2010), p. 28. 2 Richard Waite, ‘Revealed: Latest Robin Hood Gardens Scheme in for Planning’, Archi tectsjournal.co.uk, 2014 [accessed 29 July 2015]. 3 Architectsjournal.co.uk, ‘Rogers Makes Final Plea for Robin Hood Gardens Listing’, 2015 [accessed 28 July 2015].
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Introduction discussion of the wider controversy about the post-war listing programme that was developed by Aidan While, in particular about Modernist buildings. While describes this to be reappraisal of the architecture and planning of the 1950s and 1960s.4 This conservation of Modern buildings create new philosophical and technical challenges, such as the balancing of design intention and historic fabric between problems that were raised from the experimental (and failed) ideas and technologies. “But the biggest challenge was the unpopularity of modernism and its association with the social and technical failures of post-war architecture and planning.”5 RHG is grouped under examples of Modernist Brutalism, from an architectural circle that was very heavily influenced by the concept of utopia. It was a dream for these architects that their buildings could solve the struggles of humankind. However, Brutalism, is a style that tends to be considered unpopular and ugly, most especially its proponents liberal use of raw, exposed concrete. Adrian Forty discusses the raw concrete embodied hope to “change the quality of life for the better”, however it ultimately was the subject of paradoxes and contradictions revolving around the collapse of the pre-fabricated Ronan Point Housing block in London in 19687 and demolition of other Modernist Estates such as Killingworth Towers8 and the Heygate Estate9. In the context of the English post-war listing programme a key debate arises between the notion of tangible and intangible heritage, between the physical attributes of the artifact itself and its wider meanings and values it embodies. According to Laurajane Smith much of the current debate is based on a conservation ethic formed around the idea of inherent value, what she terms “authorised heritage discourse” (Henceforth AHD).10 Authorised heritage discourse is an expert-led process about heritage being conserved and managed in the UK as this “reassuring warm and cuddly blanket… with its promoted past and predicted future”11; a tangible quality that many Modernist Brutalist buildings lack. Smith discusses AHD as a kind of “authorised mentality” that legitimises and de-legitimises cultural and social values12; as seen in Britain as a kind of authority - English Heritage. However, in
4 Aidan While, 2007. Referenced from Graham Farmer and John Pendlebury, ‘Conserving Dirty Concrete: The Decline And Rise Of Pasmore’s Apollo Pavilion, Peterlee’, Journal of Urban Design, 18 (2013), p. 265. 5 Graham Farmer and John Pendlebury, ‘Conserving Dirty Concrete: The Decline and Rise of Pasmore’s Apollo Pavilion, Peterlee’, Journal of Urban Design, 18 (2013), p. 265. 6 Adrian Forty, Concrete And Culture (London: Reaktion, 2012), pp. 164, 223. 7 Graham Towers, Shelter Is Not Enough (Bristol: Policy Press, 2000), p. 41 on the Ronan Point disaster and what it represented. 8 Peter Kellett, ‘Killingworth Towers: What Went Wrong?’, Open House International, 12 (1987), pp. 4-11. 9 Southwark.gov.uk, ‘A New Era: Final Stages of Demolition at Heygate Estate | Southwark Council’, 2014 [accessed 31 July 2015]. 10 Laurajane Smith, Uses Of Heritage (London: Routledge, 2006). 11 Gregory Ashworth, 1996. Cited by Graham Farmer and John Pendlebury, ‘Conserving Dirty Concrete: The Decline And Rise Of Pasmore’s Apollo Pavilion, Peterlee’, Journal of Urban Design, 18 (2013), p. 265. 12 Laurajane Smith and Emma Waterton, ‘‘The Envy of the World?’ Intangible Heritage In England’, 2008, p. 291.
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Fig. 3: The Ronan Point Partial Collapse.
Introduction practice most of the post-war listing programme still focuses on “grand, tangible and aesthetically pleasing sites, monuments and buildings”.13 Brutalist architecture is commonly grand and all too tangible, but the exposed concrete is generally perceived to be aesthetically unappealing. Correspondingly, it is not as clear-cut as popular views might suggest.14 Smith’s argument of how all heritage is intangible goes against this perception of authorised heritage. All heritage is described to be only tangible through intangible associations, feelings and understandings of ‘physical evidence’.15 She explains the idea of intangibility of all heritage in these four interlinked reasons: “First, it lies in the realisation that at its core, ‘heritage’ is simply a shifting range of intangible cultural values that are used to give meaning to places and events… Second, it lies in the social and cultural ‘affect’ of heritage and the intangible, but no less ‘real’ or material, social and political consequences that heritage has in validating individual and collective senses of place, identity and collective memories. Third, it lies in the way heritage is constructed in, and through, discourse, and subsequent ways in which dominant heritage discourses regulate and govern not only what is defined as heritage and its use, but the social and political consequence that it has. This consequence is linked to the way heritage may be understood to be incorporated within the processes of remembering and forgetting. An interlinked relationship exists between heritage and memory and so, fourth, the intangibility of heritage reflects its relationship with memory.”16 Finally, RHG is re-imagined through the conceptual lens of the Park Hill model. It starts by comparing the two to see if what was done at Park Hill can be adapted to RHG. The dissertation concludes through this method of partial remodelling, the essence of the “intangible” is preserved while addressing the failed iconography of these buildings. The dissertation was developed from archival sources, critical appraisals from excursions to the various sites, first-hand observations of the various architecture, and engaging with relevant groups and individuals.
13 Emma Waterton, 2011. Cited by Graham Farmer and John Pendlebury, ‘Conserving Dirty Concrete: The Decline And Rise Of Pasmore’s Apollo Pavilion, Peterlee’, Journal of Urban Design, 18 (2013), p. 276. 14 Laurajane Smith and Emma Waterton, ‘‘The Envy of the World?’ Intangible Heritage In England’, 2008, pp. 289-302. 15 Ibid., pp. 296, 287. 16 Ibid., p. 292.
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Fig. 4: The state of Robin Hood Gardens.
THE SMITHSONS’ VISION 1. Why is Robin Hood Gardens important?
RHG was a late version in part of the polemic drive about ‘streets-in-the-sky’. Originally coined ‘street-in-the-air’, these ‘streets-in-the-sky’ was a design idea by the architect duo in the Golden Lane Competition that called for redevelopment for the blitzed East End of London. Through studying the local typologies, it was to create a community in a new version of the Cockney streets. This new access “street” intertwined with the busy local life, and also explains the Smithsons’ rejection of the high-rise tower blocks. Tower blocks had been considered “too private and did nothing to enhance or inspire coexistence among people sharing a building”17 and streets were reinvented as a new form of deck access to high-rise flats. Although the Smithsons were unsuccessful in winning the competition, the design heavily influenced predecessor schemes of this new way to live. Many versions of the Smithsons’ ‘streets-in-the-sky’ had been realised before they could come to designing their own in 1967 at RHG, such as the Park Hill Estate in Sheffield; and the Alton Estate at Roehampton. By this time, the problems of the streets had already started to appear18, but they still tried to develop their ideas on housing and prescribe the same way of living. This became problematic because even during its construction, RHG already attracted vandalism.19 Simon Smithson, the son of the Smithsons told that once the families moved in, he saw the old peoples’ centre get ‘smashed up and had to be locked’.20 Such a short inhabitation period would immediately discredit claims that problems were caused by years of poor maintenance. Anthony Pangaro had described in his own experience visiting RHG that the failure was the result of the street decks and its arrangement to the flats denying personal space.21 This was not the only evidence of failure; Alice Coleman published a study on a Design Disadvantage Survey22 and Robin Hood Gardens measly scored 14 out of 16. This survey theorised the problems of crime, vandalism and littering through elements in the design of Robin Hood Gardens. By 2003, the complaints from its residents was twenty times higher than the average of the other Greater London Council estates.23 The available evidence seems to suggest that RHG was a failure from the start with no reprieve. As a result, both the owners and residents of RHG wanted it to be demolished. However, this was met with a passionate response from admirers of the Smithsons. This ongoing debate falls within Smith’s idea of the “intangible” heritage being constructed through discourse. Admirers argued on the grounds that RHG was of “outstanding
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Alison Margaret Smithson and others, Alison and Peter Smithson (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2004), p. 62. Explained later in the chapter of the Park Hill Estate. The Smithsons On Housing (BBC: Bryan Stanley Johnson, 1970) about an opening statement from the Smithsons expressing their horror of the vandalism on the construction of Robin Hood Gardens. Alison Smithson suggests to “leave people where they are to smash it up, in complete abandonment and unhappiness”. Building Design, ‘Interview: Simon Smithson’, 2008 [accessed 28 July 2015]. Anthony Pangaro, ‘Beyond Golden Lane, Robin Hood Gardens’, Architecture Plus, 1973. Alice Coleman, Utopia on Trial (London: H. Shipman, 1985). Diana Rowntree, The Guardian, 8 March 2003.
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Chapter 1
The Smithsons’ Vision
architectural quality and significant historic interest”.24 A phone interview with Simon has revealed his thoughts on RHG as a true original of the streets-in-the-sky, and he brushes off English Heritage’s rebuttal to the listing efforts by having listed other post-war housing. In connection with this, the Twentieth Century Society has placed a new bid to have the housing estate listed25, and puts forward a view that places RHG within the conceptual lens of the “intangible” heritage – as found, with physical unattractiveness like its spalling concrete, RHG fulfilled its brief very well, providing the requisite number of domestic units, ample open space and dealt with the problems of traffic, noise and pollution.26 Hence, it is important that this discourse must occur to decide and discover the heritage of RHG; although many a time, for example, at the Heygate Estate27, where the discourse has yet to develop, the buildings are quickly demolished and irreversibly removing any possibility of “intangible” heritage being realised. The same principle mistake of the exodus of Victorian architecture is identified, removing everything good or bad without trace. What stands obvious is that before plans for its demolition, RHG did not receive much admiration from critics28, only through discourse has it found favour and constructed a heritage around its political and social consequence. However, the future at RHG is still inconclusive, it is important to reappraise the way current Modernist housing stock is being treated. With this in mind, the dissertation now looks to a case study on a direct comparison to RHG, the Park Hill Estate.
Fig. 6: Robin Hood Gardens and its difficult surroundings: Traffic and noise.
Fig. 5: Signs of in-habitation and tenants’ use of their own parts of the “street”.
24 Richard Waite, ‘Rogers Makes Final Plea For Robin Hood Gardens Listing’, architectsjournal.co.uk, 2015 [accessed 28 July 2015]. 25 AJ ‘Twentieth Century Society in Bid to Save Robin Hood Gardens’, WIll Hurst, 20/04/15. 26 C20 Society’s Certificate Of Immunity Response, 1st edn (London: The Twentieth Century Society, 2015) [accessed 30 July 2015], p. 7. 27 Stephen Moss, ‘The Death of a Housing Ideal’, the Guardian, 2011 [accessed 7 August 2015]. 28 Will Hurst, ‘English Heritage Defends Its Failure to Back Robin Hood Gardens’, Building Design, 2008 [accessed 4 August 2015].
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Fig. 7: Provisions of a safe, protected and ample landscaped garden. 17
Fig. 8: A picture of the Smithsons at work.
Fig. 9: The “acoustic” wall that was to “protect” RHG from the automobile.
THE PARK HILL AMBITION 2.
Fig. 10: Photo-montage of the “streets-in-the-sky” of the Golden Lane submission coming to life, Peter Smithson. The work of Jack Lynn, a contemporary to the Smithsons can be advanced to support the notion of protecting the “intangible”. Lynn, one of the architects of the Park Hill Estate, is notably closer linked to the architecture background of the Smithsons than recognised. He had been acquainted with both architects previously at Newcastle.29 These architects collectively became known as part of the Newcastle Group30, all sharing an important premise of its involvement with conception of the “streets-in-the-sky”. Despite Lynn being first to realise the “streets-of-the-sky” scheme at Park Hill, it was widely accepted that the Smithsons’ Golden Lane design revolutionised the “streets-in-the-air” in 1952.31 But less known is that Lynn had also entered a deck-access scheme for their Golden Lane entry.32 A closer look shows much similarity between RHG and Park Hill. Lynn was likewise unsuccessful in the competition, and later joined with Ivor Smith and John Womersley in Sheffield City Council to further this design idea into a regeneration scheme for the slums and the post-war city of Sheffield, the Park Hill Estate. The Park Hill Estate is highly relevant to this discussion as RHG is currently at a point where it was before. Park Hill is now Grade-II* listed the largest building in Europe and undergoing a successful refurbishment scheme by private developer Urban Splash. The concept is understood that the flats failed in its purpose of providing suitable housing today and thus requires improvement. However, this notion also identified that the Estate
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Known as Kings College at that time. Something Concrete + Modern, ‘Alison and Peter Smithson - Something Concrete + Modern’, 2015 [accessed 30 July 2015]. Saint, Andrew, Park Hill: What’s Next? (London: The Architectural Association, 1996), p. 30. Ibid., p. 30.
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Chapter 2 was not always a failure since it was completed in 1961; it received much praise from architectural circles33 and the inhabitants there had positive impressions.34 35 Socially it was a success, hopes of being rehoused post-war were fulfilled; and the slums were finally replaced by Modern luxuries such as central heating and the Garchey waste disposal.36 What made Park Hill really special was the great wall with deck-access flats, which was inspired from the “streets-in-the-sky” described earlier. The architects in a similar working method identified how the workers of the area lived in the back-to-back terraces on the site to be replaced; which front doors opened onto uphill repetitive streets, forging a community on “a lane of encounter, access, play, pride, scorn, gossip.”37 Following this analysis, they designed street decks intended to offer the same kind of community. As a result, these decks were a means of access, but also intended as a social device. Park Hill replaced the usual 1.2 meter wide balcony on every floor with a 3 meter wide street deck on every third floor. The hilly topography at the site appropriated the decks to be allowed to run out to ground level, permitting access to the wider context around it, and conveniences of living on the ground. The street decks had such continuity that spanned through the entire floor plan, achieving economy drastically higher than any other slab blocks at the time; and yet increasing the chance of bumping into a neighbour - a social preservation of the “street life” from the community, that would be protected from weather and automobile danger. This social ambition was not limited to the street decks, there are more reasons to consider. The flats were large enough to comply with the later Parker Morris Standards.38 This was a mandatory regulation that gave more space, kitchen heating, and at least a toilet for every three bedrooms. Combined with dual-aspect plans and the strict rule of sun-ward facing living rooms allowed flexibility in the
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Reyner Banham, ‘The New Brutalism’, The Architecture Review, 1955.25 AJ ‘Twentieth Century Society in Bid to Save Robin Hood Gardens’, WIll Hurst, 20/04/15. Architects’ Journal, 15 Jan (1964) p. 148. On November 1964, Sheffield Council’s housing manager, H. J. Aldhous, suggested that Park Hill’s low rate of tenancy turnover relates to tenants being happy with the estate. The Garchey system of refuge disposal was an invention inspired from Paris where the refuge is transported in a water-borne system from a disposal unit inside the flat and removed as ash from the incinerator. This is an example of modern luxuries, but the flats provided proper sanitation and better ventilation in contrast to the back-to-back terraces it replaced. Architectural Design, September (1961) p. 397. Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Homes For Today And Tomorrow (Report Of The Parker Morris Committee) (HMSO: London, 1961) on the mandatory Parker Morris Standards and the benefits of having additional space.
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The Park Hill Ambition use of space that was not possible before. Every flat would have a south-facing balcony that would either have a penthouse view or overlook into courtyard spaces. These courtyards grew as the height of the building rose and responded to the higher density of inhabitants requiring more space and visual privacy. Furthermore, through successful place-making as a microcosm of Sheffield, the courtyards included shops that had the bustle from patrons39, children playing at play spaces and adults sunbathing on the lawn. On the ground floor, the building could be imagined where it came to life. In spite of the architects’ ambition for human betterment, Park Hill took a turn for the worse. They tried to recreate the community of the slum streets – cosy chats on the doorstep, pubs round the corner and good neighbours that would help in hard times – but the theory of separating traffic from pedestrians instead matured a potential for alienation and vandalism. Although the estate fell into decline, in its heyday “the moral crusade of Brutalism for a better habitat through built environment probably reaches its culmination at Park Hill”.40 This would be a typical representation of the shifting “intangible” cultural values that give meaning to places. Park Hill was to see its inhabitant community change and in the 1970s, the conventional family unit, a family nucleus that the flats were designed to cater to, started to disappear.41 42 As a result, tightly knit communities and neighbourliness of the “street life” began to decline. A further blow was received in the 1980s where Sheffield oversaw a massive decline in its steel and coal industry; 40,000 jobs were lost in a city of 200,000 people.43 Many of the tenants in Park Hill as a result were impacted and had to survive on government benefits. Modern gimmicks and the hey-day cheers became plagued with the social and physical fabric of the estate.44 As society changed, housing needs changed correspondingly; much has been already written on why Park Hill and other modernist social housing blocks failed.45 But this is exactly what makes it a good model to take when asking what to do next about any complex modern building.
39 The Estate contained four pubs, 42 shops (including a communal laundry), a community centre, social clubs, a health centre, dentists, a nursery and primary school. From Cooke, Rachel, ‘How I Learnt To Love The Streets In The Sky’, the Guardian, 2008 [accessed 21 July 2015]. 40 Reyner Banham, The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic? (London: Architectural Press, 1966), p.132. 41 A Question Of Park Hill (Sheffield: Steve Hewitt, 2009). 42 Price, Cedric, Park Hill: What’s Next? (London: The Architectural Association, 1996), p. 61. 43 Hanley, Lynsey, Estates: An Intimate History, 3rd edn (London: Granta, 2012) pg. 117. 44 Jones, Peter, ‘Streets in the Sky: Life in Sheffield’s High Rise’, 2007. Prints [from websites accessed May 2010] of three articles describing a resident’s experiences of living in Kelvin Flats, Hyde Park Flats and Park Hill Flats in the 1980s and 1990s. (Sheffield Local Studies Library: 307.336 SQ, 307.336 SSTQ). 45 For example Alice Coleman, Utopia on Trial (1985); Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow (1988); and a more recent piece, Lynsey Hanley, Estates (2012).
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Chapter 2 What strikes out at Park Hill was that it was so un-British. The architects wanted to prescribe a new way of living (for good reason to break up the community of the notorious inhabitants from a violent slum nicknamed “Little Chicago”) and took inspiration from foreign architecture of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’ Habitation in Marseilles46 (there a utopian vision of a complete life in the sky). Although it was not the first of its kind to be built in Britain, Park Hill was grander in all other ways.47 In a single concept, 995 dwellings (that could house almost 3,000 people) were built in under a decade to meet the housing shortage; in a Modern interpretation of the street and house that would lead one from the decks directly to his door. Park Hill was even called “a model in terms of community interest and pride”.48 But this was not without effort, many factors would attribute to this pride, for instance, Mrs. J. Demers was a resident social worker employed to live on the estate. She helped other housewives settle into this new prescription of life; public meetings briefed future tenants; almost like a paternalistic way of handling its people. Hence, it is important to realise that the “intangible” may be invisible in contemporary perception; in particular at housing developments like Park Hill, which saw a period of extensive deterioration. I put forward a view that all venerable Brutalist housing should be listed; in formal recognition of the “intangible” values imagined in the grand scheme of slum re-housing. The listing is not to act as to save these buildings (it does not prevent demolition, only harder to achieve49), but to encourage a method of rethinking how to deal with the current Modernist housing stock. Through this discourse, the “intangible” social and progressive ambitions will be recognised and the UK can continue to build on its rich heritage of the post-war welfare state.
The Park Hill Ambition
Fig. 12: The Unité d’ Habitation in Marseilles, the concrete shimmers here like travertine limestone in the Mediterranean climate.
Fig. 11: A comparison of the spacious kitchens (right) in the Park Hill flats to the back-to-back terraces (left) it replaced. 46 Bacon, Christopher W., ‘Streets-In-The-Sky : The Rise And Fall Of Modern Architectural Urban Utopia’ (Ph.D., University of Sheffield, 1982) on the origins of Park Hill. 47 There were previous interpretations of deck-access such as at Roehampton or Golden Lane. 48 Draft Report of Working Party on High Density Developments, Sheffield City Council Policy Committee, 1976, p.9. 49 Historicengland.org.uk, ‘Listed Buildings | Historic England’, 2015 [accessed 5 August 2015].
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Fig. 13: The interior corridor of the Unité, which British Modernists reformed for their “streets-in-the-sky”.
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Site
Fig. 14: Park Hill Estate, site plan showing the external courtyards and its continuity as a united building (and street decks).
Fig. 15: The Park Hill flat plans, the dual aspect a key feature missing in many present-day flats. 26
Fig. 16: Children playing in the Park Hill courtyards.
THE DECLINE OF PARK HILL 2.1 But not failure.
Fig. 17: The Park Hill wall plaque covered with graffiti. Park Hill’s ambition was to rehouse people from the post-war situation and preserve the best traditions and communities, but the idea of council housing had developed a sort of refuge for people instead. Over the decade of 70s to 80s, Park Hill could be nicknamed back to what it replaced as anew iteration of the “slums”; the technology began to break down, a temperamental new heating system that left tenants in the cold; dampness in the concrete began to cause sickness; and cockroach pest infestations were making life unbearable for the residents.50 The dejected local opinion of the place was intensified when “a prisoner of Park Hill” wrote to Sheffield Star about the life there. Though purely emotional, the ‘Cry of Despair’ amplifies the claims of critics of Park Hill and its decks51 that the “intended social relationships based on streets in the air failed to materialise”52, and instead created dark areas and an expansive number of escape routes. A vicious circle of aspirational families moving away developed, only to be replaced by transient tenants who made the estate less and less desirable to live on.53 By 1988, 47 per cent of the tenants had arrears with their rent.54 In contrast to the original allocations, this was a high number of tenants on benefits clustered into the estate. This must be seen in the
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Tuffrey, Peter, Sheffield Flats pp. 61-74 on the nuisances and problems that plagued Park Hill in the years of its decline. Architecture Review, November 1967, p. 351 on that “only 9 per cent mentioned the value of being able to stand on the decks and look at the view... only 4 per cent remembered that the decks made it possible to stand out and talk to people. This discounts a good deal of romantic nonsense about the decks being a hive of activity; as any visitors knows, they are not”. Pawley, Martin, Architecture Versus Housing (New York: Praeger, 1971). Hanley, Lynsey, Estates: An Intimate History, 3rd edn (London: Granta, 2012), p. 117. Tuffrey, Peter, Sheffield Flats, p. 74.
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Chapter 2.1 light of Margaret Thatcher’s Housing Act of 1980; which allowed the right to buy thus further dividing the between of those who could afford and those who had to live on benefits. The Act increased discounts for tenants to buy their dwellings to 70%, meaning that the most attractive dwellings would be bought off by the relatively better off tenants. The least desirable dwellings were left to those that could not afford, and concentrated the poorest and asocial tenants into the worst estates. By the mid-90s, “95% of those housed by local authorities qualified for some form of means-tested state benefits” – this a root of the “sink estates” that were seen to come. The way in which Park Hill was constructed also became an issue within itself; the result of savings from the work done55 saw growing number problems. Evidently the concrete did not weather as well as hoped, within 5 years it was spalling and cost prohibited cleaning, and maintenance. All that was done was to make them safe by chipping the loose bits of concrete.56 Over this time frame, the soft landscaping also left much to be desired, the architects’ intention was to give visual satisfaction in the courtyards but in reality it was the opposite. Children played in the lawn resulting to dullness of the greens and vandalism on the trees.57 Though there was a budget for maintenance, clearly this was insufficient and the management could only do what was within its means. This budget for the building maintenance would be further stretched by the problems created through antisocial behaviour, amongst the root were mischievous children and older hooligans’ rowdy-ism. These behaviours had effects of vandalism, littering and graffiti and one of the main problems could be identified from the lifts; their numerous breakdowns would strongly link the number of children abusing them. Young couples could be seen going in them for a repeated journey up and down the building for “necking”
Fig. 18: The decay of Park Hill’s spalling concrete. The flats are all boarded up.
55 56 57
Tuffrey, Peter, Sheffield Flats, pp. 58-59 on the savings made on the Park Hill construction. Ibid., p. 78 on an interview with a Sheffield housing spokesperson. Ibid., p. 58 about a speech by Sheffield’s Council’s housing manager, H. J. Aldhouse on comments about Park Hill, November 1964.
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The Decline of Park Hill sessions58 and drunken residents would overload the lifts59 until they broke down. A differing opinion would fault the ‘cheap installations’ and ‘ineffective maintenance’ that corroborate to the tight cost restraints faced. As deduction from these reasons, there is unavoidable relation to the negative conclusion of all public housing in flats by Alice Coleman in Utopia on Trial (1985). Through her research, Coleman recommended modifications to remove the access decks which offered a multitude of uncontrolled access points, and pins the social breakdown on poor architectural design.60 But it is all too easy to simply pin all social ills on architecture, in particular when trying to achieve demolition. The icon of success of housing at Sheffield had become a “filthy eyesore and many in Sheffield, both on and off Park Hill, wanted it demolished.”61 Broadly describing, the actual premise was about a myriad of social, political and architectural problems that resulted to conclusive rejection. Further research into a report by the Ministry shows that it does not support the view of blaming all social ills on architecture.62 It says that conclusive rejection was because of the poor maintenance and unattractiveness at Park Hill. Even though Park Hill saw a period of decline, the Estate was by no means an unromantic version of an Englishman’s castle, it was the flagship of Sheffield’s success in public housing during the midnineteenth century. An important issue emerging from these findings, is that authenticity of heritage does not just lie within the tangible spalling problems “as found” 63. The case here at Park Hill demonstrates that it was a monument that it had managed to reconcile that function for a home, particularly when the building became Grade-II* listed on 22 December 199864; in acknowledgement of the lessons of public care and service that Banham embraces in his revisit.65
58 Ibid., p. 51 referencing an interview with young mother, November 1961. 59 Ibid., p. 69 referencing an interview with Station Officer Tony Mulcrone, September 1980. 60 Alice Coleman, Utopia on Trial (London: H. Shipman, 1985). 61 Lorne Campbell, ‘Pride Of Place’, Inside Housing, 2006, 24. [accessed 5 August 2015]. 62 Reynolds, I., and C. Nicholson, ‘Living Off The Ground’, Architects’ Journal, August (1969). 63 Ruskin, J. 1899. Cited by Laurajane Smith and Emma Waterton, ‘‘The Envy of the World?’ Intangible Heritage In England’, 2008, pp. 291. 64 List.historicengland.org.uk, ‘Park Hill Listing Entry’, 2015. [accessed 22 July 2015]. 65 Banham, Reynar. New Society ‘The Park Hill Victory’ (18 October 1973).
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8
ENTER URBAN SPLASH 2.2
The listing at Park Hill unavoidably made demolishing a lot harder to achieve but it did not provide the necessary finances to upgrade the estate. Here the listing would continue to preserve together with its monumental presence, the depreciating cost of material and social problems. This was identified earlier as a process to motivate the local authority to rethink how to deal with this large part of its housing stock. Fortunately, there was enthusiasm for Park Hill, met by huge investment from a private developer.66 On the 5th of January 2007, Sheffield Telegraph announced a £146 million deal to redevelop Park Hill. Working together with English Partnerships and Sheffield City Council, Urban Splash had a drastic reinterpretation of the Brutalist identity for Park Hill. However, the controversy continued as Park Hill was completely stripped of its flats and streets. What was left was only the original board-marked concrete frame which was patched and repaired. The lower ground flats were replaced with shops, to encourage connection through to the courtyards. A tall iconic mirrored helical staircase and a massive incision of glass for a new welcoming entrance to the building. The iconic concrete deck handrails now replaced with gentler timber. Glass lifts, instead a joyous occasion to ride. Flats re-configured to new combinations and added generosity of space and storage given by reducing the width of the streets-in-the-sky. The architects of this new reinterpretation67 had the opportunity to correct the original faults of the design, adding corner windows onto porches, allowing the needed supervision on the streets. The overarching idea of this refurbishment shows how the Grade-II* listing seems to have little effect here on preserving the original fabric. Urban Splash took a middle-ground position, by partially refurbishing the Estate; keeping the concrete frame which was what allowed the best feature of the estate, the “streets-in-the-sky”. It is important to note that through this model it acknowledges the existing negative controversy surrounding the estate, by refurbishing Park Hill to contemporary standards of living and sufficiently changing its impression to give Park Hill a new vitality. Though Banham would likely rather have seen Park Hill demolished than see it through this transformation (after his declaration and profound fondness of Brutalism as “valuation of materials as found”68), Urban Splash has done well by modernising the flats to today’s standards, as well as keeping it readable as the original from a distance. Demolition would not have been appropriate for a number of reasons. Firstly, it would not be sustainable in light of such shortage69 for housing in Sheffield; demolition would create a hole in the stock while waiting for a scheme
Fig. 19:Previous page, The Park Hill Comparison. Left to Right, the new modernised Park Hill; the stripped structure to its bare skeletal concrete frame; and the old brick infilled flats. 34
66 The Sheffield Star had previously received a seven to one result against preserving Park Hill in a poll, revealing a large local unhappiness with the listing. 67 Architects: Studio Egret West and Hawkins/Brown. 68 Reyner Banham, ‘The New Brutalism’, The Architecture Review, 1955, pp. 354-361. 69 Richard Reporter, ‘Chronic Lack of Housing in Sheffield’, Thestar.co.uk, 2013 [accessed 22 July 2015].
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Chapter 2.2
Fig. 20: A 29-metre tall, iconic mirrored helical staircase at the entrance of Park Hill. to be rebuilt at this estate (that could house 1,000 families). Furthermore, as argued by Paul Finch, for reasons that “public sector housing in the UK, certainly of that era, was funded on 60-year soft loans”70, early demolition would mean to continue paying for something that was no longer there. However, overemphasis on these tangible logics looks the other way of how Urban Splash has sensitively preserved certain aspects of the Brutalist construct. Their critical appraisal of keeping the concrete frame and some of the original concrete feature walls result into a kind of visual reminder of what it stood as before. As discussed in the introduction, the “intangible” aspect is that concrete and Brutalism symbolises the failures of postwar Modernist dreams. Looking at this as a kind of social aggregate to the concrete mix, the progressive social ambitions of the welfare state also become part of the heritage preserved. Hence, demolition should never be the solution to dealing with these venerable estates.
70
Paul Finch, ‘Demolished Buildings May Make Financial Sense But Adaptation Is the Sustainable Option’, Architects’ Journal, 10 September (2009), 19.
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Fig. 21: The new Park Hill by Urban Splash with ample deluxe details.
THE NEW PURPOSE OF PARK HILL 2.3
Fig. 22: Illustration from The Guardian transcribing social problems. In all the glory of this massive overhaul toward a better Park Hill, a new way of financing the work was needed. The building would no longer be in the original concept of council housing, but now of mixed-tenure.71 In light of Urban Splash’s private investment, rebuilding purely a new social housing scheme would not provide satisfactory remittance, but this was not without further controversy. The refurbishment would create “900 modern new homes… with 634 for sale on the open market… 200 for rent through Manchester Methodist Housing Association”.72 This was in accordance with the contribution the Housing Corporation and English Heritage gave; £9.85 million and £14.8 million accordingly.73 The first discussion brings up the entrepreneurial role English Heritage has adopted74, but this can be overshadowed by the great success in the first phase of the refurbishment.75 One thousand people had registered to live in the refurbished flats. This was a resounding response, but further into the controversy they were blamed of “class cleansing”76. The council housing stock at this point had a waiting list of 60,000 applicants and was already extremely limited. A series of interviews held by The Star revealed
71 Mixed-tenure is typically a housing scheme where one might be able to buy outright, rent, or opt to buy the property under a ‘shared ownership’ basis with the provider. 72 ‘Park Hill Housing, Sheffield, England’, The Architectural Review, 2007, pp. 74-77. 73 Tuffrey, Peter, Sheffield Flats, p. 84. 74 Stephen Bayley, ‘Stephen Bayley: The Absurd Listing of a Block of Flats in Sheffield Is Richly Comic ... And Expensive’, the Guardian, 2009 [accessed 5 August 752015]. 75 Tuffrey, Peter, Sheffield Flats, p. 84 on a newspaper article from the Sheffield Star, 22 September 2011. 76 Owen Hatherley, ‘Regeneration? What’s Happening in Sheffield’s Park Hill Is Class Cleansing | Owen Hatherley’, the Guardian, 2011 [accessed 22 July 2015].
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Chapter 2.3 displeasure in the refurbishment77 as existing tenants felt like they were being ‘decanted’ from Park Hill. They would have to move out of their flats while the refurbishment work happened, and most of them would no longer be able to move back into their original home as the flats would then be resold in the private market. In spite, the contrasting opinion of introducing mixed-tenure into Park Hill would have numerous benefits. The mixed-tenure would bring back some of the old traditions of having a broader background of inhabitants and break up the existing atmosphere of a ‘sink-estate’. This should be seen in light that at 1979, 42% of the British population lived in council housing, however by 2008 the figures were less than half at 18%.78 Diluting the number of council tenants encourages that original diverse sense of community. Contemporary research on housing further validates this view that in order for a socially sustainable community to work, there needs to be a wide mix of types and tenures of housing.79
The New Purpose of Park Hill For these reasons, blaming all social ills on architecture is ignorant. The successful model at Park Hill demonstrates how architecture can be adapted to serve a different social group. Although there is a great declaration of refurbishment in Park Hill, this is simply a model that synthesises how Modernist buildings can be treated. The flats were stripped to its concrete frame; the infill replaced with brightly coloured anodised aluminium panels as celebration of refurbishment; and privatising social housing. However, this is not to be exactly the same prescription for instance, at RHG. This necessitates a flexibility in this partial-preservation along its extent of change in the physical fabric and use. More importantly, this notion implies a singular cause that adapts architecture to suitable needs, in particular to how one should act when dealing with the declining Modernist housing stock.
A different set of problems that plagued the estate was of security. As discussed earlier, it was partially faulted in the failure to architecture design. But with the introduction of a concierge, this was swiftly dealt with - an idea that original architects welcomed to the regeneration.80 Security doors, that were previously daftly added to ruin the aesthetic of the building by giving it a prisonlike image, is now neatly installed to restrict access only to residents. Though the decks were designed as extensions of the city, trouble-makers were allowed to roam around the estates. These installations introduce an added formality to the streetsof-the-sky but also completely removes social malaise from them. The streets could now allow its inhabitants to express personal display without fear of vandalism. In correspondence to Coleman’s claims on architecture spawning social malaise, Park Hill disproved the consensus that deck-access public housing was flawed and dangerous.81 This is further obvious in another Brutalist housing scheme at the Barbican Estate. The Barbican is a similar blitzed post-war redevelopment to Park Hill that is full of bare concrete, open space, urban density, streets-in-the-sky and communal facilities. As it was designed as private housing and was well cared for while its contemporaries turned to slums, none of Coleman’s material clues of social malaise can be found there though it ticks many of her noted design disadvantages.
77 Thestar.co.uk, ‘What Next for Park Hill Tenants?’, 2009 [accessed 23 July 2015]. 78 Harris, John, ‘John Harris On Council Housing And The Consequences Of Right To Buy’, the Guardian, 2008 [accessed 22 July 2015]. 79 Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Mixed Communities, Foundations: Analysis Informing Change (York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2006) [accessed 30 July 2015]. 80 Architectural-review.com, ‘Park Hill’s Original Architect Responds to AR Revisit’, 2011 [accessed 22 July 2015]. 81 Cruickshank, Dan, Park Hill: Its Future (London: The Architectural Association, 1996), p. 49.
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Fig. 23: The Park Hill Phase-II refurbishment, entitling a large scale landscaping redevelopment. 41
CONTINUAL DISCOURSE 2.4 The Preservation of Controversy at Park Hill.
Fig. 24: The rubble of the Park Hill overhaul; with the listed concrete frame still standing in the background. In this section, the discussion points to how Park Hill continues to construct the heritage through discourse.82 The future of Park Hill is now in balance, but public controversy remains in the heritage listing. It was questioned how much could be changed before the listing becomes meaningless.83 Though, the view of English Heritage is to preserve the architectural interest of and clearly express the contemporary additions to the flats, there are contrasting opinions from purists like Catherine Croft. She questions how much of Park Hill had been ‘saved’ in the Grade-II* listing. Much of its original historic fabric has been removed and as the older parts wait next door for their refurbishment, the comparison of new and old has never been easier. On the contrary, look at the Park Hill sections awaiting refurbishment, the first thing that comes to mind is surely not the architectural intentions, but rather the disrepair of the physical condition. The exposed concrete spalling badly and the flats sorely need the updating, never with any effort to modernise them before. Subsequent to refurbishments, the flats were no longer purely council flats. English Heritage combined a radical change with form and content. The original aesthetic had lent itself to a kind of poverty and failure84; and In lieu of negative opinions of 60s’ social housing, the new architecture had metaphorically and literally changed the aesthetic of Brutalism.
82 83 84
42
Amanda Baillieu, ‘Park Hill’s Troubled Transformation’, Building Design, 2009 [accessed 23 July 2015]. Ibid. Adrian Forty, Concrete and Culture (London: Reaktion, 2012), p. 41.
41
Chapter 2.4 The study has shown that the listing at Park Hill serves minimal control of preservation. However, through keeping part of its original, the model at Park Hill will continue to provoke discussion about its material, aesthetic, social and heritage. In particular, the controversial brutalist raw concrete that is still left exposed in the concrete frame and feature walls. To portray the issue in Smith’s terms, this “heritage discourses regulate and govern not only what is defined as heritage and its use, but the social and political consequence it has.”85 The future sustainability of Park Hill will henceforth depend on Urban Splash, its inhabitant community and other individuals to continually participate in the discourse and building of comprehensive social history. Let us hope that this dream will remain well and cared for.
Fig. 25: The preservation and celebrative expression of the original Brutalist concrete in the flats; next to the fins of a state-of-the-art radiator. Fig. 26: The spacious, refurbished flats of Park Hill.
85 Laurajane Smith and Emma Waterton, ‘‘The Envy of the World?’ Intangible Heritage In England’, 2008, p. 292.
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Fig. 27: The old Park Hill and contemporary refurbishment in the background.
RE-IMAGINING ROBIN HOOD GARDENS 3. Through the experience of Park Hill.
Fig. 28: The post-war destruction in Sheffield. If the listing of Park Hill Estate has managed to successfully “save” and yet preserve the “intangible”, the same model would be worth looking at to use at Robin Hood Gardens (RHG) before its imminent demolition. RHG future is doomed by 2016, as a result of the recent failure in the bid to list the 1972 estate. Yet, to consider the demolition of RHG before realising the value of its “intangible” qualities is highly ignorant. Society is repeating the same “clean slate” approach of Modernism. The better approach is decided to be similar to John Summerson’s plea to preservation: “To my mind, a town with no old streets is like a man who has lost his sense of past and future, who just exists, idiotically and pathetically exists, from second to second… In fact, I believe that the more ambitious, the more revolutionary we become in our attitude to present-day town-planning, and architecture, the more we shall be inclined to value those fragments of building history that we can reasonably preserve.” 86 The post-war years had been overshadowed by the human and moral disasters of the world war and this demanded a desire for a brave new world, in which planning demanded a tabula rasa. On the contrary, present-day context does not have that same destruction of war. Demolishing RHG irreversibly executes it to “intangible” heritage; remembered in its discourse and documents. The model at
86
46
John Summerson, 1938. Cited by Gavin Stamp, Britain’s Lost Cities (London: Aurum, 2007), p. 4.
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Chapter 3 Park Hill has shown this is not the appropriate way to treat these venerable Modernist Housing blocks. A synthesis of the model can be roughly broken down into five interlinked points. First, it lies in the realisation that at its core, these monumental Brutalist schemes represent progressive social ambitions of the postwar welfare state. The “intangible” value is embodied within the raw concrete as a social aggregate and mandatory listing to architecture disallows easy removal of its venerable presence. Second, by listing it formally recognises intangible heritage. More importantly, it argues the physical spalling state of Brutalism does not necessarily represent the value of heritage. Third, what can be done at Park Hill or RHG could be different, but it lies down a concept of keeping a part of the physical fabric to visually remind of its past. Fourth, architecture is adaptable to be favourable for its situation. As seen at Park Hill, changing its form and context resulted into positive response. Finally, through an interlinked relationship with the aforementioned points and so, fifth, keeping the controversial architecture keeps discourse and building of a broadly based social context. Re-imagining RHG through this model can have many outcomes, but what is important is part of its physical fabric is preserved. Although RHG may not be a strong model for a community, unlike at Park Hill, but RHG was compellingly successful in “protecting” its inhabitants. It provided a model for privacy, and perhaps suitable as a design for mobile, small, upper middle class families, particularly appropriate in a British context of a private home.87 But in light of its disfavour88 89, suggesting to preserve it as if nothing was needed beyond the ongoing maintenance would be inappropriate. This seems partly related to Graham Steward’s paper on RHG. He concludes that the approach adopted in transforming Park Hill cannot
Re-imagining Robin Hood Gardens be applied into Robin Hood Gardens’ architecture because of its monolithic construction; as the structure and fenestration are inter-connected.90 Thus in order to achieve a similar success at Park Hill, the façade would need to be modified so far that the architectural intent is taken away. However, there is a key problem with this argument shown by the earlier study on Park Hill. My dissertation has identified that the recipe for refurbishment may deviate, but more importantly still hold onto the authentic “intangible” values. Robinson further identifies that one aspect of the Smithson’s vision that the local residents want to survive was the park, and this is preserved in the master-plan rebuilding the RHG site.91 Though this might constitute part of the physical body of RHG, critical appraisal should be rethought in light of this argument of the aforementioned points on working with these Brutalist blocks. The model of Park Hill here proves invaluable; that RHG would benefit from financial aid that it has been lacking all these years. It is true that the building looks ‘grim’, mostly from the crudely exposed services and spalling concrete. It would like not be necessary (though possible) to use steel and glass like at Park Hill, but the kind of response needed here is something drastic and heroic, like the original intention for the design.
Fig. 29: The original Park Hill Estate (left) and the new architect’s impression for the renewal (right). 87 88
Anthony Pangaro, ‘Beyond Golden Lane, Robin Hood Gardens’, Architecture Plus, 1973, pp. 44-45. A survey carried out by Tower Hamlets council found that more than 80 percent of the tenants favored demolition and replacement with a new development offering better facilities. Cited by Graham Steward, Robin Hood Gardens, Blackwall Reach: A Search for A Sense of Place’ (Wild Search, 2011).
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89 Diana Rowntree, ‘Architect Whose Modernist Buildings Were Ahead of Their Time’, The Guardian, 2003 [accessed 6 August 2015]. 90 Graham Steward, Robin Hood Gardens, Blackwall Reach: A Search For A Sense Of Place (Wild Search, 2011), p. 14. 91 Ibid., p. 22.
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CONCLUSION
The modernist housing blocks of the post-war period bettered towns and cities around Britain in what was seen to be a visionary and modern answer to the housing crisis of its time. This attitude is embodied as social ambition within the Brutalist construction. However, this form of ‘intangible’ heritage is often controversial. The civic presence and heroic ideals of Brutalist constructs are often ambivalent in their contemporary meaning. The current debate surrounding RHG is illustrative of this wider controversy, with current plans to flatten this estate to build a higher density development named Blackwall Reach and the Twentieth Century Society’s campaign against the destruction for a more humane and environmentally responsible solution. The Smithsons gave a physical manifestation of their “streetsin-the-sky” but this was not as successful as hoped. Therefore, it would be worth considering Urban Splash’s refurbishment of Park Hill as exemplar to saving RHG. At the Park Hill Estate, where the listing is only seen to conserve the concrete structural frame, the extent of refurbishment has resulted the building to no longer be Modernist architecture, nor was it social housing. This can be justified by the tangible economic and material reasons, but on the other hand, most invaluable is its “intangible” heritage. The building represents a grand ambition to provide enjoyable dwellings in a time of housing shortage and poor living conditions. Furthermore, to the intensively altered aesthetic – in a way that celebrates the alterations – it preserves part of the original that conserves the architectural intents of the ‘streetsin-the-sky’, a continual reminder of the original progressive social ambitions of the post-war welfare state. The modernised and spacious new flats at Park Hill from the first phase are now fully occupied, unfolding a new success of Brutalist architecture. From this perspective, demolishing these venerable buildings is to act as if they did not exist before; although there are alternative opinions that would prefer demolishing to remember them as social housing, this is deemed unsustainable; having developers attempt at creating a sense of place will just not generate something as staunch as RHG. By way of discourse about Park Hill’s success, it would be more appropriate to conserve these buildings no matter the extent of refurbishment (as seen at Park Hill). In a way of its Grade-II* listing at Park Hill serves to discourage destruction and give incentive for financial investment. Thus, while listing RHG might be the first step to saving it, the discourse and refurbishment by keeping part of the original physical fabric restores its ambition and progressive ideals. In doing so, the “intangible” heritage will remain preserved in this tangible form. Even as a hint, these values prove to be more robust and valuable for a society, especially in the present-day context of housing shortage. RHG can stand as a symbol as to what the design first meant to be, to solve the problems of slums and create this admirable new way of living. This is why I would favour to giving RHG Grade-II* listing. RHG deserves that chance, something that will help give some indication of the balance between architectural values; housing values; and heritage values as a symbol for tomorrow.
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Fig. 30: “Streets-in-the-sky” at Robin Hood Gardens. Archive photo.
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Ivan Chin Newcastle University +44 7544 821668
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