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Denial of Robin Hood Gardens Listing to be Appealed
Denial of Robin Hood Gardens Listing to be Appealed The government’s decision not to list the Robin Hood Gardens housing project will be appealed. The Twentieth Century Society filed the original application to list the development, designed by Alison and Peter Smithson. The Smithsons were innovators of modern architecture at the time the building was constructed and are largely responsible for the New Brutalism style that the Robin Hood Gardens represents. New Brutalism would emerge as the most significant contribution to architecture by British architects during the 1950s and 1960s. Consequently, the Smithsons buildings were largely responsible for re-establishing the Modern architectural movement in Britain and the construction of Robin Hood Gardens played a significant role. At the time Robin Hood Gardens was completed in 1972, the universal nature of car ownership had finally been accepted and that fact is revealed in the layout of the site. Parking was provided for up to 70% of the residents and this was accomplished by building two parking ‘moats’ running parallel to the street sides of the buildings below street level. Doing this allowed the cars to be hidden from sight, yet still allowed for ventilation and natural lighting while freeing up space between the residential blocks for pedestrian, urban space. Another architectural innovation of Robin Hood Gardens includes the layout of the landscaping. Unobstructed views overlooking a public garden were provided to residents who each had a balcony unobstructed by columns. The Smithsons’ accomplishments are astonishing with the site considering what the duo had to work with. Immediately adjacent to the entrance to the Blackwall Tunnel, the building site was essentially a large traffic island. According to CABE director of architecture and design review Diane Haigh, Robin Hood Gardens “successfully creates a good place to live in a difficult urban environment dominated by major roads” and the site is “highly significant in the national context.”
The appeal to list the groundbreaking site follows the decision of heritage minister Margaret Hodge’s decision not to grant the listing application. Sunand Prasas, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), sees the denial as a threat to all buildings built late in the 20th century. Still, the Twentieth Century Society is not giving up. “We’ve passed everything we could on the case to our legal team and they took a number of decisions…on the practical stuff,” said caseworker Jon Wright. “We think a terrible mistake has been made and we want English Heritage (EH) to have another look at Robin Hood Gardens. We are saying that the decision was wrong and that certain things were not considered which should have been and that other things were considered that should not.”
“It is clearly a decision that future generations will find incomprehensible. This will be the case regardless of whether the building is now demolished and becomes the Euston Arch of 2020, or if (as we still hope) an innovative design solution leads to its successful refurbishment and survival despite the short-sightedness of the bodies that are meant to safeguard our heritage. EH’s advice to DCMS that the Estate was not of significant historic interest will be seen as an example of a beleaguered quango seeking to curry favour with its paymasters.” Denial of a listing puts the historic building at risk for demolishing to make way for new construction in the area. It is believed that the site owner, Tower Hamlets Council, will bulldoze the buildings in order to make way for a large redevelopment in the area funded by English Partnerships. A report by architect Horden Cherry Lee that said a needed refurbishment would be unfeasible on cost grounds at over £70,000 per unit. Prominent architecture groups, such as Building Design (BD), and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) are backing the campaign to list Robin Hood Gardens. Listing the estate could make the costly refurbishment much more attractive to private investment, similar to the rebirth of the Park Hill Flats in Sheffield that were listed as a grade II*.
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The architecture sounds interesting. Have the housing units proved popular with those who have lived in them?
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This intel was contributed by MegaDaz
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May, 2012
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