Robin Hood Gardens: Concrete Bungle?

this is robin hood gardens it's distinctive it's an estate in poplar in east london which is a stone's throw from the major commercial district of canary wharf poplar became something of a guinea pig for experimental architecture in post-war britain for the simple reason that the area was badly pummeled by german bombing during the blitz and so there was the need and the opportunity to rebuild the lansbury estate shown here and crisp street market were built for the 1951 festival of britain as a showcase for british architecture the balfrond tower was built in 1967 followed shortly afterwards by caradale house and carey house then there's robin hood gardens robin hood gardens was were designed by allison and peter smithson a husband and wife team and champions of the new brutalism style of architecture they'd made their name with hunston school which is praised to this day in 1956 they would co-create an installation with nigel henderson and eduardo palozzi at this is tomorrow the art exhibition that would lay the foundations of british pop art in fact paulotsi would describe them as the architects in 1964 they designed the economist building which is now grade 1 listed by the end of the 1960s they enjoyed a strong reputation internationally despite relatively few completed projects they had become hugely influential for their modernist concepts and so the greater london council approached them with a proposal to build a massive housing estate it was just what the smithsons had dreamed of you see the smithsons had a philosophy and to be fair to them it was not a bad philosophy the argument they made was that the concept of the tower block then the most common form of social housing was flawed of course it was it's notoriously flawed the problem as they saw it was that the tower block concept was originated in an era before widespread car ownership and intensive urban development it just wasn't suited for the reality of modern living or as they put it in 1954 we live in made cities less confrontationally the american city planner oscar newman suggested that the very form of tower blocks encouraged antisocial behavior because they offer lots of dark corners and places of concealment robin hood gardens was designed to be different it would be the first and only time the smithsons would get to make their vision of ideal living a reality it was council housing to be built from pre-fabricated concrete panels in the style known as new brutalism the term new brutalism was coined by the smithsons it used easily available low-cost materials although in this case costs would drastically increase due to design flaws that surfaced during construction the estate would consist of two long buildings not designed to follow a grid pattern with a quiet green area in the middle and concrete baffles to protect inhabitants from traffic noise there would be 213 flats in total one of the buildings would be seven stories tall the other ten the design inside was per a concept known as streets in the sky an attempt to recreate the community spirit of old ground level terraces the flats would be constructed along long airy corridors to allow free movement the front door of each flat stuck out to allow each flat a little recess that they could call their own it was meant to be friendly and livable to locals they were the posh flats but the reality didn't live up to the dream and robin hood gardens fell into the exact same trap that the builders of tower blocks had fallen into vandalism overcrowding and poor maintenance were as prevalent in the smithson's pet project as they had been in the tower blocks it was intended to supersede poplar was an area with problems beyond the scope of architecture the running down of the docks had resulted in massive unemployment which in turn brought poverty boredom and crime the estate had been designed as an oasis of calm amidst the bustle of poplar but its architecture instead made it insular it literally looked inwards an island surrounded by busy roads what didn't help was that it became a sink estate a place where the council would put their problem tenants who in turn would make life unpleasant for the ordinary residents the smithsons were accused of arrogance of prioritizing their vision with no consideration of the needs of people the very epitome of the out of touch architect peter smithson imagined robin hood gardens as a place where people could live generation after generation but by the early 2000s that was looking absurdly optimistic the question arose was it worth keeping one survey by the council admittedly one that has been questioned suggested that 80 percent of residents wanted the place demolished a campaign sprang up to save it headed up by various prominent architects they argued that it was hugely significant as the only realization of the smithson's vision for housing two attempts to get it listed failed in fact in 2009 the government put a five-year injunction on listing the estate which seems kind of unsporting to me but whatever historic england countered the campaign with the argument that there was nothing particularly revolutionary about the estate in itself and it was kind of a dump i'm paraphrasing there english heritage said that it doesn't deserve to be preserved because it fails as a place to live ouch in 2012 the go-ahead was given for black wall reach a redevelopment of the area that was to entail the demolition of the estate this was to be 50 affordable housing and 50 well this oddly enough the website for black wall reach mentions the robin hood estate but doesn't mention knocking it down it almost seems to imply that the housing estate is still there it's just been given a bit of a do-over the western block was demolished in 2017 although a section was saved for the victoria and albert museum according to wikipedia the eastern bloc was demolished in 2019 but i have reason to believe they may be mistaken so here's the question did the smithsons fail it's notable that the vast majority of those campaigning to save the estate were architects who didn't have to live there despite calls for public support that to me suggests that the answer depends on whether you're thinking theoretically or practically you can't blame the smithsons for robin hood gardens being turned into a sink estate nor can you blame them for the council skimping on maintenance and you certainly can't blame them for the economic problems of the local area although i do think it's something they should have taken into account nevertheless i think robin hood gardens was always going to fail at some level and here's why the smithsons had their philosophy and it was all very nice but it wasn't based in the real world they expressed frustration about the way residents treated architecture and they seemed overly preoccupied with the concept of building for successive generations which is all very well but i'm not particularly bothered about what successive generations do with my flat i'd imagine they'll be too busy fighting robots or whatever the smithsons seem to have this frankly slightly condescending attitude towards the residents of their blocks considering them to have a carefree existence compared to poor mistreated architects the general impression i get is that they thought the work they did could improve society if those awful residents would just behave the way the smithsons wanted them to as a side note when hunstan school was opened alison insisted that it be photographed with no pupils or furniture in place which i find quite telling okay fine but the idea behind robin hood gardens was that it would solve the problem of council estates but it didn't the problems were known at the start you can't really defend something by saying the solution we came up with was correct you just gave us the wrong problem i think we also need to acknowledge the elephant in the room here which is how monstrously ugly it is it looks like something out of judge dread i personally believe that architecture should be designed with its surroundings in mind that it should be attractive both for the people who use the building and the people who have to look at it this isn't it's obnoxious even if it was cleaned up it would still be obnoxious so the estate was doomed and while the campaign to save it was vocal the voices were mostly coming from fans of the smithsons that being said i don't think the estate was given a fair chance renovating the estate to a decent standard would have cost 70 000 pounds per flat but that was a fraction of the cost of total redevelopment jonathan glancy the architecture critic suggested that they might be turned into student halls of residence which i don't think is a bad idea actually other architects proposed more dramatic alterations but tower hamlet's council who owned it by this point seemed absolutely determined to knock the estate down no matter what and andy burnham the culture secretary seemed determined to let them as for the smithsons this was not only their first major public work but their last nobody was willing to give them a second shot at their vision of future living still it doesn't seem to have harmed their reputation in the long run the new development of black wall reaches considerably less interesting than robin hood gardens it's not as ugly but nor is it beautiful it is entirely undistinguished it could be anywhere it inspires no emotions whatsoever i don't know if that's an improvement or not nevertheless that is how the story of robin hood gardens ends so what do you think i genuinely find it hard to come to a verdict so i really would be interested to hear your thoughts in the comments section i guess my conclusion would be that it was a good idea in theory but in reality it was naive and out of touch i do have to give the greater london council credit for being willing to experiment even if they and their successors screwed it up in the long run and the smithson's design was a bold and interesting attempt to resolve the issue of housing estates even if it didn't work still ugly though hello i hope you enjoyed this brutal video if you did then please hit the like button share with your friends and maybe subscribe for more on this and other aspects of london and its buildings and i'll see you again very soon cheerio you

Channel: Jago Hazzard

Views: 361,890

Keywords: Architecture, Brutalism, Alison and Peter Smithson, Smithsons, Robin Hood Gardens, Poplar, Modernism, Council estate, London

Id: 4YqP21MQKvA

Length: 12min 4sec (724 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 22 2021