Re:Crimes in Concrete
by NeedMoreTea on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @12:07PM
(#19910798)
I'm not idolising the 30s but that era does seem to have been something of a peak for public housing. Even with a few awful ones. It was the last major round of building before we got the post-war legislation that gave us overspill estates - almost guaranteed to be isolated sink estates and split families. At least part of the attitude that saw tower blocks cut off from the world by adding a major urban motorway or junction as part of the project.
You're completely right about the brutalist campuses, btw.
But I wouldn't idolise pre-war architecture. There are some shockingly awful 1930s estates around London, and they're almost as dispiriting in their own way as archetypal brutalist tower blocks.
The garden cities are much more pleasant, but then you're not comparing like with like. Tower blocks were built to replace Victorian slums, with relatively high population density in both.
Some of the original designs were terrible, but sometimes they can be salvaged.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/may/12/grand-p...