Journal 9: Housing the Twentieth Century Nation

Edited by Elain Harwood and Alan Powers
To be Published 2008 £19.50
Format 255x198mm, 176pp, colour cover
ISBN 978 0 9556687 0 8

There was no bigger issue in the twentieth century than housing. In peace or war, people need homes, and a growing population and demands for better standards put architects, planners and sociologists to work. The century was known for its public housing, culminating in the tower blocks that once peppered major cities such as Birmingham and Glasgow, now fast disappearing. But that is far from the whole story.

This journal considers housing from across the century, from rural Norfolk to inner London, via Scotland and Wales. It looks at the work of local authorities on meagre budgets, at the colourful world of housing charities in the 1920s and even at the problems of building high-density flats for the rich.

Other articles appraise Britain's housing internationally. East Tilbury, built for a Czech industrialist on modernist lines, is studied in new depth. Cumbernauld and Peterlee - pillories of post-war planning - are reappraised, and forgotten housing figures from mid-century Liverpool and the Midlands uncovered. New light is also shed on such famous estates as Alton and Byker, with articles by architects who designed them.

Contents

Barbara Linsley Homes for Heroes: Local Authority Housing in Rural Norfolk, 1918 – 1923

Roland Jeffrey Housing Happenings in Somers Town

Matthew Whitfield Lancelot Keay and Liverpool’s Multi-Storey Housing of the 1930s

Joanna Smith ‘Work Collectively and Live Individually’: The Bata Housing Estate at East Tilbury

Judith Alfrey Themes and Sources for Public Housing in Wales

Elain Harwood Neurath and Bilston, Pasmore and Peterlee

Peter Carolin Sense, sensibility and tower blocks:  the Swedish influence on post-war housing in Britain

John Partridge  Roehampton Housing

Chris Whittaker The Water Gardens, ‘An Underrated Corner of the Capital’

Miles Glendinning Cluster Homes, Planning and Housing in Cumbernauld New Town

Michael Drage Byker: Surprising the Colleagues for 35 Years, a Social History of Ralph Erskine’s Arkitektkontor AB in Newcastle

Jonah Lowenfeld Estate Regeneration in Practice: The Mozart Estate, Westminster, 1985–2004

Contributors

JUDITH ALFREY is an Inspector of Historic Buildings with Cadw.

PETER CAROLIN was a partner in Colin St John Wilson & Partners (The British Library and other buildings), Editor of The Architects’ Journal and Professor of Architecture at Cambridge.   He has a particular interest in the work of Gunnar Asplund.

MICHAEL DRAGE worked in Byker from 1973 to 1984. Since then his practice has worked mainly on community and arts projects, notably the Live Theatre in Newcastle and urban design/heritage projects with the Civic Trust. He was a long-time member of the RIBA Community Architecture Group and of Newcastle Architecture Workshop.

MILES GLENDINNING is Director of the Scottish Centre for Conservation Studies, a research and postgraduate teaching unit within the School of Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art.

ELAIN HARWOOD is a historian with English Heritage.  She is writing the Pevsner City Guide to Nottingham, and a major book on English post-war architecture.

ROLAND JEFFERY held director posts in housing associations before moving into the heritage sector.  He has led the restoration of several historic buildings, the best known being Hawksmoor's Christ Church, Spitalfields and Shoreditch Town Hall. He currently works for The Princes Regeneration Trust, advising on heritage projects across the country.

BARBARA LINSLEY is Archivist for the Raveningham Estate in South Norfolk; advocate of affordable housing and vice-chair of one of the few parish councils in Norfolk to have achieved new housing in the village for rent to local people.

JONAH LOWENFELD is a writer living in Los Angeles. He has a M.Sc. from the Bartlett in Architectural History & Theory. This article was adapted from research conducted while living in London as a Fulbright Fellow.

JOHN PARTRIDGE CBE RA was a founder partner of Howell, Killick, Partridge and Amis (HKPA), whose partners met at the LCC in the 1950s forming the design team for Alton West Housing, Roehampton. The practice, which gained over 30 design awards, continued until he retired in 1995 and became a consultant.

JOANNA SMITH is a historian with English Heritage. She wrote Behind the Veneer: the South Shoreditch Furniture Trade and its Buildings, published in 2006. 

MATTHEW WHITFIELD is completing a PhD on Liverpool's inter-war 
municipal flats, based in the Manchester Centre for Regional History 
at Manchester Metropolitan University.

CHRIS WHITTAKER studied at the AA School 1943-4 and 1947-51, then turned to planning, at Basildon and the LCC’s Brandon Estate until 1960.  He was an Associate with Trehearne & Norman, Preston & Ptnrs, 1960-65; for the MHLG/DOE 1966-72, he worked on the Barnsbury Environmental Study; and as a partner with Stephen George & Ptnrs, 1972-80, he had many Tenants'  and Residents' Association clients.

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