Robin Hood Gardens redevelopment - architectural vandalism or mercy killing?

Designs to replace Robin Hood Gardens, the 1970s housing estate in Tower Hamlets designed by Alison and Peter Smithson, have been revealed.

The debate about the merits or otherwise of Robin Hood Gardens over the last few years, resulting from the news that it was being considered for demolition, has not shown the architectural profession, or architectural journalism, in a particularly brilliant light. Amid strident accusations of architectural vandalism, questions about whether you want 'great architects' with interesting theories to design social housing were left on the sidelines. And in the trite description of such projects as 'experimental', the question of how the results of the 'experiment' were supposed to have been monitored, and what the findings were, remain largely undiscussed (there was no such exercise, of course).

The Smithsons' reputation has increased over time. They were powerful polemicists and effective self-promoters. There is little argument that the Economist complex in St James is a masterpiece which has stood the test of time. But many remain sceptical about the Smithsons' built achievements considered in the round. Hugh Pearman wrote about the architects under the title 'Should Alison and Peter Smithson have stuck to talking?'. A dispassionate look at Robin Hood Gardens today reveals the relevance of that question. Robin Hood Gardens, later than and derivative of earlier projects such as Park Hill, is just not that good or that interesting as architecture, and it feels dysfunctional as a place. The idea of using buildings to enclose communal public space is claimed by the project's supporters as a masterstroke, but it's hard to see the result as an advance on the eighteenth and nineteenth century squares, the builders of which appear to have had the idea rather earlier.

Today, Robin Hood Gardens is a run down and depressing place. While it has suffered from the neglect common to many postwar social housing projects, the flaws lie in the design as well as what happened after completion. Demolition appears by far the most sensible option.

Research into the critical reception of Robin Hood Gardens revealed a remarkable episode that took place ten years or so after it was completed. The architect and critic Robert Maxwell wrote an account of taking the leading Italian architect Vittorio Gregotti to see the project in the early 1980s: ‘He wanted to see Robin Hood Gardens……We looked all over it, which was not easy. Many of the flats were boarded up, there were broken milk bottles and a smell of urine everywhere. There was hardly anyone about. This was not the jolly street life envisaged for street-decks. We were all at a loss, and not a word was spoken. We turned away…. Only a visit to Berlage’s Holland House, on our way back, could cheer him up.’

The connection made here between Robin Hood Gardens and Holland House is remarkable, because their elevations are structured in very similar ways - see below. Did they visit Holland House by chance, because it was already on Gregotti's list of things he wanted to see, or because someone said to him ' we can show you this kind of thing done a lot better.'














































Where Berlage is all sensuality and detail, the Smithsons offer, well, Brutalism. The demolition of Robin Hood Gardens will not be a great loss to the world. The problem, as with other Brutalist buildings, is that it is clearly a 'something' rather than a nothing. The challenge to the architects of the replacement scheme is to improve on the architecture as well as the housing.

It's a wrap. Or possibly not.

The AJ reports Lord Coe defending, and architect Rod Sheard attacking, the decision to leave out the 'wrap' which was to have formed the cladding to the whole of the outside of the 2012 main stadium below the roof structure.

This issue was already being discussed when the above photo was taken in July, and at that time it was already looking like a bad idea to leave out the wrap.

The back of Piano and Rogers' Pompidou Centre in Paris is an example of a building facade without a wrap. It still looks good, because everything that was revealed was designed to be seen, and worked out accordingly - a visual effect achieved at considerable expense - money well spent as far as the architecture is concerned, but costlier than providing a 'wrap' covering it all up, and letting the services subcontractors do what they want behind it.

At the stadium site this summer, large amounts of miscellaneous kit were already being installed in the void below the seating, and it was obvious that it had not been designed with a view to looking good - it had the look of equipment laid out pragmatically with little thought to its appearance. At the time, it was still undecided as to whether it would be visible or not.

Expect to see a lot of electrical trunking and suchlike in plain view if you visit in 2012 - and probably some ad hoc advertising opportunities to cover up any particularly unfortunate consequences of this decision. Maybe the RIBA should take one: 'Should have listened to the architect'.

Design review by royal appointment

It seems that the Prince's Foundation would like to run a design review programme. Presumably this would be a sort of revival of the 'licence to crenellate', which applied a while back.

Prince Charles' tastes over the years have seemed to favour the classical rather than the Gothic, but it's never been clear whether he would really prefer to turn the clock back to roughly the eighteenth century - the peak of Georgian excellence, but by which time the powers of kings were already a bit restricted - or roughly the thirteenth century - Gothic architecture, but proper kings.

However, it seems that the popular view of the licence to crenellate - that it was a favour which was in the royal gift - is mistaken. According to the historian Charles Coulson, there was in practice not much restriction on building castles, and there was 'very slight chance of interference by royal officials even in so intensively governed a realm as England.'

But that was then.

One New Change

To EC4 to witness the grand opening of Jean Nouvel's One New Change - the City's brand new monument to retail. It was mobbed with City workers taking an early lunch - there was even the obligatory street performer on stilts, just like architects always draw. He had a French accent ('no phurtos, s'il vous plait'), so perhaps it was Nouvel, who is not tall and might have been worried about being lost in the crowd on his big day.

The eye-catching 'stealth bomber' architecture has been criticised as 'likely to become dated' by some of the design chatterati - a line of attack which always needs to be challenged. St Paul's cathedral on the other side of the road can be dated by a historian, but does it look 'dated'? The mania for 'barcode' elevations and the like has been subject to the same criticism, but Eric Parry's building in Finsbury Square, an excellent example of the style and shortlisted for the Stirling Prize, seems likely to stand the test of time simply because it is a good piece of architecture. It will be possible to date it in a hundred years, just as we can now date an Edwardian civic building to within ten years or so without looking it up. Perhaps 'temporal distinctiveness' should be added to 'local distinctiveness' on the planners' checklists.

What is the English for urbanism?

If there is to be a CABE 2.0, then it would be good if it could be a proper champion for urbanism in England.

In a way, that is what it had already become - but it had never made this clear. CABE, rightly careful about use of language, has wherever possible avoided terms like urbanism and urban design, fearing that they are even more of a turn-off, for all except the professionals, than the word architecture (which they avoid like the plague). Yet its reviews of projects and its advice are far more focussed on urbanism than on architecture. Whether those architects and others who moan about CABE's activities are moaning because of this fact or in ignorance of it is not clear.

Architecture - designing buildings - is really difficult. Urban design is, in principle, easy by comparison. It is delivery that is the difficult bit. For various reasons, urban design is got wrong in England, constantly and everywhere.

The Urban Design Group, the Academy of Urbanism, the Urban Design Alliance etc. all exist separately, with slightly different remits - all are well intentioned and sound - but are little heard and not effective on the ground - certainly if the evidence of what gets built in most places is anything to go by.

There is no strong nexus for urbanism at the RIBA or the RTPI, and none in government. If a minister took and interest and got the point and asked who to go to to find out more, it would be hard to know where to point them.

If there is to be a new version of CABE more independent of the government, it should be a national centre for urbanism, with a strong physical presence, and a shop window prominent in central London. All of the organisations with an urban in the title should be rolled into it, and major developers and landowners should support it.

Then we might have the beginnings of a decent, public-facing Baukultur, as the Germans call it - an urban development culture, with a common language, free of gobbledegook, understood by professionals, public bodies, the private sector and the public. 'Civic architect' is an example of a term that gives the flavour and communicates readily to most people - Leeds City Council has just got rid of the last example of this once common post in England.

If we got that culture working properly, with better briefs, better clients and better planning authorities, there could be a framework where architects could be left to design buildings without the constant irritation (apparently) of busybodies telling them where they are going wrong.

This would all take several decades, and in this period the precepts of urbanism will probably change in all sorts of ways anyway because of climate change - all the more reason to get on with it.

Dynamic view protection

It's good news that Indian elephants have been given the protection of heritage status. But how do you protect a view of an elephant?

Reports of CABE's death greatly exaggerated?

CABE is severely threatened by the withdrawal of funding, but it appears that it is not actually being abolished, as many other quangos have been.

CABE is eleven years old. That is about the age that someone or other - the Spartans? - put their children out in the wild for a few days to see if they survived; and that seems to be the Government's attitude to CABE. Learning to forage will be the order of the day.

There has been a national design review programme in England since the 1920s - the Royal Fine Art Commission did the job before it was wound up and replaced by CABE in 1999. If you went back and looked at the RFAC's judgements about projects in the 1950s, 1970s or 1990s, you'd find much the same issues being discussed in much the same way as in CABE's reviews now. Peer review is peer review, and it's generally a good thing.

CABE has always promoted the value of good design - taking various senses of the word value, but including the monetary one. This thesis is to be put to the test rather directly now, as they seem likely to have to seek out those who are prepared to pay for design review.

My money (but only in the metaphorical sense) is on a national design review programme carrying on in some form.