London Estates: Modernist Council Housing 1946-1981
Thaddeus Zupancic (Fuel, £26.95)

PHOTOGRAPHER Thaddeus Zupancic hails from Slovenia, where his father first helped focused his gaze on the architecture that nurtured and held communities together, more often than not in wonderful modernist design.

This fascination grew further when he moved to London, via Germany and France, where the sight of these often breathtaking architectural constructs stimulated even more the Situationist in him.

Zupancic’s concise and brief introduction makes important points that contextualise politically and historically what is so intriguing in his illuminating photos. 

The visual vade mecum features 275 estates built between 1946 and 1981 throughout London and is delivered in an urban geographic order of NE, NW, SE and SW.

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The 1950s are believed to have been the best period for council housing, with almost 1.5 million dwellings built and well over 198,000 in 1953 alone, of which 80 per cent were council-owned. 

This was all made possible by public investment that peaked that year at over 6.9 per cent of GDP and the prioritisation, by Clement Atlee’s government, of rebuilding the housing stock both damaged and/or destroyed during WWII. Today, however, the ratio oscillates between 0.5-1,1 per cent.

Zupancic records these often extraordinary buildings in all their diversity, where the neglected and dilapidated unknowns find their place next to the distinguished and celebrated.

From the yellow of London brick to grey concrete texturised by the imbued wood grain from the moulds it was poured into, from red brick to colourful cladding, from the intimate in scale to the massive and sprawling, the responsible architects never lost site of the fact that they were serving communities. Always for the many, never for the few.

The list includes the most esteemed figures of 20th century British civic architecture: Denys Lasdun, Chamberlin, Powell & Bon, Skinner & Lubetkin, Neave Brown, Basil Spence, Erno Goldfinger, Peter Tabori, Gordon Benson and Alan Forsyth, Sydney Cook and Kate Macintosh.

As a result a great many are joyous affairs in unexpected settings and sometimes even venturing into the realms of sculpture.

A huge range of architectural styles are represented — from prefabricated and “self-built” schemes, to modernist and brutalist designs, including over 30 protected historic buildings. 

As is known, Thatcherism terminated local authorities’ power to design (through their architect departments) and then build housing, and handed it over to private developers, and there is today precious little political apetite to restitute those powers.

And so, over the years, lofty municipal dreams slowly turned into the present-day nightmare. 

Mackintosh was one of the early pioneers who, at 26, stunned the architectural fraternity with the dazzling, “top of the hill” Dawson Heights (300 homes, 1964-72). She said in a recent interview: “I struggle to keep my flame of hope alive.”

There are signs that London borough authorities are, here and there, interested in regaining some of that lost ground and some modest-in-scale attempts have rendered some noteworthy architecture, notably by Peter Barber, Archio or Karakusevic and Carson.

The post-war estates nevertheless remain a benchmark that may never be surpassed and for that alone they are worthy of celebration, where appropriate, and certainly we owe a debt of gratitude to the genius of those who designed them.

Kudos to Fuel for another imaginative collaboration. 

London Estates: Modernist Council Housing 1946-1981 is available from fuel-design.com.