please empty your brain below
The old Mappin and Webb building at the eastern corner of Cheapside in the City. Agreed that it was crumbling down, but could have been replaced with a copy, much like the Germans did with Dresden after WW2.

scrumpy | 15.03.25 - 7:18 a.m. | #

Got me wondering how much pre-WW2 housing still exists in Poplar. Only a handful of roads with any from early/late Victorian era by the looks of it.

Lucy | 15.03.25 - 8:30 a.m. | #

Passing through Stratford (east London not Warwickshire) this morning, I noticed how many high rise blocks of flats have been built in recent years. Very different from when I used to catch the DLR 20 years ago. London needs a lot more affordable accommodation but I fear this will not be built even with a Labour mayor and government

Scientist | 15.03.25 - 8:49 a.m. | #

1990s redevelopment in Canterbury saw the postwar National Provincial Bank building in Canterbury demolished and replaced by bland faux Victorian retail. It was the jewel of the rebuilding necessary, following the destruction incurred in the Baedeker raid of 1942.
Side by side pictures of before and after are the third pair on this page.

Man of Kent | 15.03.25 - 9:13 a.m. | #

It's always flats! Will we ever build houses that have a garden?

Hadders | 15.03.25 - 9:33 a.m. | #

Hector Guimard lived and had his office in the Castel Béranger, and Ernő Goldfinger also lived in Balfron Tower, albeit for just two months. There is no way that the Smithsons were ever going to live in Robin Hood Gardens, any more than any of the later campaigners for its preservation (including their son Simon): they were just happy for other, poorer people to be consigned there.

MartinG | 15.03.25 - 10:20 a.m. | #

The old Foyles building in Charing Cross Road... in fact, most of the rest of Charing Cross too!. Army and Navy in Victoria Street. All the perfectly good housing stock that was sneakily included in 1960s slum clearances...

Isambard | 15.03.25 - 11:14 a.m. | #

Defenestration is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. From Latin, fenestra. I think you meant 'demolition'.

keenreader | 15.03.25 - 11:31 a.m. | #

Plenty of new housing built near me (sunny Southend-on-Sea), mostly detached houses which the builders make most money from.

It all looks a bit soul-less and ugly now, but I think that's just how brand-new housing looks. It looks better once it's lived in: for someone to plant the garden or paint everything a weird colour.

h2g2bob | 15.03.25 - 11:37 a.m. | #

Housing in London: there's already enough of if. It's just that so much of it lies empty because it's been bought as an investment rather than a place to live.

Aslan | 15.03.25 - 11:49 a.m. | #

The problem with so much ‘brutalist’ social housing is that, despite its best intentions, the cost of maintaining it soon surpassed the capacity of the local authority. Meanwhile, private developments, such as at the Barbican, live on.

The V&A has acquired a three-storey section of Robin Hood Gardens, ‘..both the exterior facades and interiors of a maisonette flat as a significant example of the Brutalist movement in architecture.’

ActonMan | 15.03.25 - 11:52 a.m. | #

Not in London, but it was real shame some fool desiced to torch old Perkkaa chapel. The area does not have many old (or beautiful) buildings to begin with.

finfly | 15.03.25 - 1:00 p.m. | #

Sidcup where I live has a fine Brutalist office block in Station Road, little known outside the area.

David | 15.03.25 - 2:50 p.m. | #

I find current nostalgia for brutalist architecture baffling, especially having worked in two major such public buildings. Your original Robin Hood Gardens post referred to poor sightlines, narrow stairs, scary walkways, lack of obvious exits and flats “crammed in”, which suggests really poor design, not an architectural masterpiece. Many brutalist buildings are sculptural rather than practical, often designed on an intimidating scale that dwarfs humans, and frequently inherently hard and expensive to maintain (eg Lasdun’s UEA student buildings were/are apparently notorious for leaks and bad acoustics, his National Theatre leaked for years). 50s and 60s architects loved concrete, because it allowed for huge spans and vast solid expanses, but traditional building with materials such as brick or timber allows for maintenance and repair, rather than built-in decay and obsolescence when concrete stains or decays. Too much present-day housing is bland copycat design, but just because you can build a concrete monolith doesn’t necessarily mean you should.

Labourer | 15.03.25 - 5:10 p.m. | #











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