Comments on: Public Practice https://spitalfieldslife.com/2018/09/10/public-practice/ In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London Tue, 11 Sep 2018 09:44:30 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 By: mlaiuppa https://spitalfieldslife.com/2018/09/10/public-practice/#comment-1225230 Tue, 11 Sep 2018 09:44:30 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=168676#comment-1225230 Appreciation of architecture takes time. Sometimes longer for some.

Unfortunately, sometimes buildings are demolished before they live long enough to be appreciated. We are reminded of that constantly when vintage photos are compared with what replaced a lost jewel.

Everything can be saved. Just depends on how much time, effort and money you’re willing to dedicate to the task.

]]> By: Andrea Kelly https://spitalfieldslife.com/2018/09/10/public-practice/#comment-1225042 Mon, 10 Sep 2018 13:34:21 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=168676#comment-1225042 The effects of austerity and increasingly centralised government have been dire – we need to teach each generation to be uncompromisingly vigilant! See:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n24/tom-crewe/the-strange-death-of-municipal-england

]]> By: Malcolm https://spitalfieldslife.com/2018/09/10/public-practice/#comment-1225041 Mon, 10 Sep 2018 13:21:12 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=168676#comment-1225041 None of these 50’s and 60’s monoliths has any architectural merit and wouldn’t be missed if they were demolished. The trouble is that they would only be replaced by something even worse and out of reach of the local people, who would be displaced to some far-distant sink estate, like the former residents of the Heygate Estate in Southwark. The Boundary Estate is an object lesson in housing that is designed with people in mind, rather than winning this year’s architectural prize. Modernity isn’t a bad thing but there are very few post-war housing projects in London that aren’t ugly or badly designed, or both. I went to school with a boy who lived in Sulkin House and I went there a few times. The problem is that it is facing the wrong way. The front is facing north and the design, which points all the front doors into a dark V shape, means that the kitchen, which is at the front, is always dark and you had to have the light on constantly. I imagine that they were positioned thus so that the balcony, which is accessible from the lounge, was south facing and therefore had the sun most of the day. Trevelyan House – just round the corner in Morpeth Street – is the sister block to Sulkin and is exactly the same.
Whilst it is true that new housing was desperately needed in the immediate aftermath of the war, what we got was basically a copy of the Eastern Europe/Moscow model of monolithic structures made of fairly cheap materials. Today what we get is either cheaply made pre-fabricated monoliths that nobody can afford or ultra-expensive glass carbuncles in prime locations that only oligarchs, criminals or investment funds can afford. So much for civic amenities.

We used to go up to the top of the Chrisp Street clock tower when we were kids, but I believe it’s closed now, probably because after years of neglect it has become unsafe.

]]> By: Mathilde Grange https://spitalfieldslife.com/2018/09/10/public-practice/#comment-1225011 Mon, 10 Sep 2018 09:08:59 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=168676#comment-1225011 Very interesting.

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