The Great Estate: the rise and fall of the council house

Yesterday I watched The Great Estate, the rise and fall of the council estate on BBC 4. It was a documentary by Michael Collins about social housing over the last hundred years. It was a fascinating exploration of the way communities function, how architecture can create identity, and the way in which publicly-owned resources have been usurped by the political class (first the Left, which rigged the selection criteria; then by the Right which sold the assets off).

Everything started to go downhill with the 1977 change to the Housing Act.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0109dvs

Above: Recently I had a look round the Brunswick Estate near Russell Square. Modelled (loosely) on the Ziggurat of Ur, the cascading effect is very attractive. Originally the estate was intended to stretch as far as the Euston Road.

Above: The rectangular design encloses a shopping plaza that seems bustling and full of life. Upmarket supermarket Waitrose, a medical centre, a cinema etc. Everything you could want seems to be here.

As well as a trendy smoothie bar (one of the best in London) the central plaza includes a Starbucks and a branch of Patisserie Valerie.

Above: Just nearby is the Lord Cornwallis pub, which has open fires in winter.

Above: to one side of the centre is the beautiful park Brunswick Square, and beyond are sports facilities.

Above: immediately adjacent to the estate is the Foundling Gallery, one of the finest art collections in London.

And yet despite all the facilities and the distinctive architecture and the convenient setting the Brunswick estate has struggled to establish itself. The flats are supposed to be pokey, and riddled with leaks. At one point the centre became a "concrete canyon" with most of the shops boarded up. Only after an intensive refurbishment has a sort-of renaissance been achieved. This has been accompanied by dubious social cleansing of about a quarter of the social housing units, the council tenants being replaced by designers and knowledge-workers. And you still get a feel that the area could regress.

I suppose my point is that if somewhere like the Brunswick can falter, what hope is there for places like the Heygate Estate? Why can't the architects simply give people what they want? Individual family homes with gardens.