As 2023 draws to a close and with so much bad news around housing, I am trying to finish on a positive note. In this post I have drawn together several pieces I have written for the wonderful Municipal Dreams blog https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com which celebrates the fundamental achievements in council housing and the commitment of so [...]
Following my last post on Flats! I joined #househistoryhour to present a session called A Brief History of Flats. It was during this that @EllenCLeslie flagged up some other flats: the Albert Hall Mansions; although I knew the area, I did not appreciate their historical significance as part of how we would live looking forward. [...]
Happy new year to everyone. This post has in fact been in the making for years – further delayed by Covid-related workload – as I have tried to collect my thoughts and fill in gaps and it can still only scratch the surface of understanding something about the history of flats. Some flats and indeed [...]
One of the best things about living on the London underground is having such easy access to London's countless cultural venues and range of exhibitions. At first glance the V&A - a museum of art and design - may seem an unexpected place to host an exhibition about social housing. It's a small exhibition, but [...]
Lubetkin’s stairwell hovers like layers of propellers in the atrium at Bevin Court; it is nothing short of stunning. If this is not enough, in the entrance hall to this modernist council built apartment block, there is also a bust of Ernest Bevin and the Peter Yates' mural Day and Night, Winged Bulls. How must it [...]
Estates like Park Hill were built as a brave and positive contribution to housing as part of a wider vision of how we might live in the urban environment. The council architects Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith (who died very recently) had drawn inspiration from Le Corbusier’s post war Unité d’Habitation and this was to be [...]
This time last week no one could have started to imagine the horrific housing nightmare that would unfold. Grenfell Tower caught fire which rapidly spread and numerous people tragically lost their lives. Buildings should be designed to contain fire at its source and provide a means of escape that is protected from the ingress of smoke [...]
YouTube clip also available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-jNMS0hVVc Who remembers Mary, Mungo and Midge? I’d always thought it was in black and white, and this YouTube is the first time I have ever seen it in colour! Richard Baker narrated the stories in his very deep voice, about Mary, who lived with her dog and pet mouse, in [...]
Denton Road still appears on my old edition of the London A-Z but apart from that, practically all traces of it have vanished. I’ve never been able to find a photo in an archive, or a snippet of written information from decision makers on what happened to all those people who lived there, and why [...]
