Page 15 - BBC History - September 2017

Women talk in front of the Gorbals tower
blocks, Glasgow, 1964

Fire devastates the 24-storey Grenfell
Tower in west London, June 2017

Some parts of Britain embraced the high-
The sheer rise revolution with greater enthusiasm than dogged British public housing.
Multi-storey public housing has sparked
prominence of others. London, with its dense population controversies in many countries. But public
pressures, saw large-scale multi-storey discourse in Britain has been especially
tower blocks in our building from the outset. In England’s vitriolic. The tradition of vehemently
cities has, for decades, provincial cities, where terraced housing had rejecting each successive phase of house-
building stems from the architect and critic
for so long dominated the landscape, multi-
made them ideal targets storey blocks tended to be smaller. Glasgow, AWN Pugin in the early 19th century and
meanwhile, saw a uniquely high proportion has been adopted by generations of impas-
for journalists’ abuse of housing built in blocks of 25 or more sioned architectural journalists. The
storeys – probably because of the city’s strong prominence – and, in many cities, contro-
MILES GLENDINNING
association with tenements. versial nature – of public-housing tower
There were also enormous variations blocks have made them ideal targets for this
he original postwar crusade to build across mainland Europe – both in the ways kind of invective. ‘Destruction catastrophes’
T large-scale, multi-storey public housing that public housing was funded and built, and such as the partial collapse of Ronan Point,
in the UK was driven by a mixture of idealism in its architectural form. In West Germany, and the far worse disaster at Grenfell Tower
and pragmatism. It was idealistic because it social housing was often constructed by earlier this year, have only in-
sought to ‘solve the housing problem’ and so-called ‘public interest’ housing companies. creased their vulnerability.
‘give the people homes’. There was architec- In East Germany, the many massive
tural idealism too – a modernist yearning to Plattenbau (concrete panel) developments of
Miles Glendinning
break from the 19th-century urban pattern the Erich Honecker era (1971–89) were built is professor of architectural
of the mixed-together, dilapidated, old by a combination of state enterprises and conservation at the University
industrial town. And it sought to make that socialist co-operatives. While tall, slender of Edinburgh
break in the most arresting way possible: ‘point blocks’ were the high-rise of choice
DISCOVER MORE
through tall towers set in open space shaping across Britain, on the continent long ‘slab’
RADIO
a bold, new, modern urban skyline. blocks tended to dominate, laid out in vast
E Streets Apart, a new series
The high-rise drive was pragmatic because developments on the city periphery.
on the history of social
the early postwar ideals of sweeping recon- Beyond Europe, in booming Hong Kong
housing, will be airing on BBC
struction were not always easily achievable. and Singapore, severe land constraints Radio 4 from 28 August
Slender towers were, it was believed, ideal for prompted the development of the tallest LISTEN AGAIN
GETTY IMAGES ing ‘housing gain’ within the protracted, many over 40 storeys high. These exception- E To listen to Jonathan Freedland discuss-
exploiting small gap sites and for maximis-
public-housing tower blocks in the world,
ing the Grenfell Tower disaster on
multi-stage redevelopment programmes that ally well-run programmes still thrive today,
BBC Radio 4’s Long View, go to
free from the crises and stigmas that have
usually prevailed in the 1950s.
bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08y24f5
BBC History Magazine 15