Tower Block Art

A Lost Cause?
On the face of it you can see where Hague is coming from. Ask most people what they think of your average inner-city council block and they'll probably conjure up a desolate world of broken lifts, boarded up windows, urine-soaked stairwells, and wind-swept empty spaces strewn with litter.

A stereotype, for sure, but the high rise block has long been synonymous with urban squalor and social deprivation. The initial idea might have been inspired by a well intentioned social utopianism but the results left a lot to be desired: badly-built, leaky buildings thrown up in a hurry using a prefabricated, system-built method which was never going to stand the test of time.

But not all of the high rise blocks built on the back of a huge post-war investment in social housing were as badly constructed and poorly designed as the many eyesores which currently blight our urban landscapes. Some were designed by major architects - Erno Goldfinger, Sir Denys Lasdun, Powell & Moya – who had a serious understanding of the principles of modernism and used high quality materials to realise their vision.

Now, it seems, their time has finally come. As the worst examples from the 60s and 70s are gleefully demolished these classic examples have slowly been re-evaluated and buildings once dismissed as brutalist and alienating have suddenly been declared national treasures.

It has, however, been a slow process. In 1993 English Heritage horrified traditionalists by making Lasdun's Keeling House the first council block to be listed. They also horrified Hackney Council, who despaired of a building they simply couldn't maintain. The structure had deteriorated, the tenants were miserable and the council were desperate to tear it down.

Modernist Masterpiece
In the interim, of course, loft living crossed the Atlantic and some of London's most neglected inner city quarters became the last word in sophisticated urban living. The industrial aesthetic was embraced by trendy young urbanities, factories were transformed into living 'spaces,' and the spartan, stripped down look, all gleaming steel and cool hard-edge surfaces, was suddenly inescapable.

City living was popular again, Le Corbusier, the godfather of modernist architecture, was back in vogue, and developers were soon scouring the inner city in search of neglected industrial or urban structures ripe for refurbishment and reinvention. And so it came to pass that Lincoln Holdings, sensing a serious opportunity and quick to recognise the eastward exodus from Clerkenwell, snapped up Lasdun's Keeling House in Bethnal Green and set about transforming to into a the kind of place aspirational young Londoner's would clamour to buy into.

The building, it has to be said, is no ordinary tower block. Lasdun, who designed The National Theatre and The University of East Anglia, created the block as a cluster of four towers linked by a central exposed spine.

This design not only dispensed with the coffin-shaped slab structure typical of many towers; it also ensured that all of the living rooms face outwards, gaining maximum exposure to the sun as it moves around the towers. No balcony overlooks another, and nearly every resident has direct access to their front floor without passing any other apartment.

Other innovations have also made the building noteworthy. Well aware that many of the new residents would be moving in from traditional two up two down terraces, Lasdun wanted to create something akin to a vertical Victorian street. So most of Keeling House is comprised of maisonettes with two bedrooms upstairs, rather than single storey flats piled on top of the other.

A classic design by a great architect, a Grade II listing, located in an up-and-coming urban quarter: small wonder then that Lincoln Holdings jumped at the opportunity.

Thanks to the listing, the architects Munkenbeck and Marshall were obliged to adopt a reverential approach and have done little to alter the original structure. A flash glass entrance foyer was added, complete with a waterfall designed by sculptor Anthony Donaldson; the internal layouts were changed to create a more open plan look; and some penthouses at the top were given glass frontages to provide spectacular views of the city. But the exterior is otherwise unchanged.

Internally it's a different matter. The apartments were gutted and completely redesigned using high-quality fixtures and fittings aimed squarely at the loft-buying market: stainless steel ironmongery, strip timber floors, and timber veneered doors.

When they went on sale at the start of June 300 people turned up on the opening weekend. With the exception of some of the penthouses at the top most have now been sold, the majority says Warren Black of Felicity J Lord, to investors and young couples working in the City. Prices range from £127,500 for a one bedroom flat to £375,000 for a triplex penthouse.

Tower Block Chic
Keeling House is not the only council block to be turned around, but it is one of the few which has been taken over by the private sector and successfully marketed. Trellick Tower, an even more well-established London icon, is generally viewed in a similar light but is still council owned and run. Contrary to many media representations, it is not populated by bright young singles with degrees in design and an account with the Conran Shop.

Martin Kingsford, CEO of Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Association is at pains to point out that of 200 odd flats only 17 are owner occupied. "We've worked hard to transform Trellick and I'm proud that such a masterpiece is still performing the function it was designed for: housing vulnerable and needy people. There's nothing trendy about what we do."

With tower block chic now a well established trend the private sector would love to get it's hands on Trellick - at present flats, when they very occassionally come on the market, sell for £250,000. Indeed, the persistent media image of a hip and happening, cutting edge urban enclave, makes clear that there are many who think it should be on the open market. But given the current successful mangement, this is unlikely to happen.

So for the moment those looking to buy a piece of high rise history will have to make do with the Barbican, currently selling for between £300,000 and £600,000. Or invest in the few remaining units at Keeling.

Alternatively, they can buy into the future: residential tower blocks are currently the thing to build in London and large scale projects by Lord Foster, Richard Rogers, and David Marks & Julia Barfield are all in the pipeline. There's also a plant-filled eco-tower by Ken Yeang about to be built at London's Elephant and Castle.

These, it is hoped, will go some way towards giving London a Manhattan-style skyline. And if the rhetoric is to be believed, all will bridge the gap between the public owned projects built after th

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