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50 years of roehampton
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Contents • 2
Contents
Executive Summary 4
Introduction 6
Le Corbusier 8
Contemporary City
Unité d’habitation
Building of Roehampton 12
Post-War Britain
London County Council
The Alton Estate
The Dying Dream 16
Roehampton 50 years on 18
Regeneration of the Community
Built to Last
Why has Roehampton Survived?
Summing Up 24
Bibliography 26
3 • 50 Years of Roehampton
Executive Summary • 4
Executive summary
In the nineteen twenties and thirties Le Corbusier shocked and excited the world
with radical ideas about how cities should be planned and built in the future.
Tower blocks set in parkland, geometric designs and layouts, cities planned into
zones by use and phrases such as “we must build in space”.
The Alton Estate at Roehampton, a nineteen fifties post-war housing
regeneration scheme, boldly applied Le Corbusier’s principles in the spirit he
intended. Five formal geometric tower blocks of maisonettes are set in extensive
open parkland overlooking Richmond park - remarkably similar to the Le
Corbusier influenced Unite de Habitation.
However, twenty-five years on, the story changes to a dying dream. Blocked
refuse chutes, reduced levels of privacy, restricted use of the open space and
occupancy polarising on the more deprived in society. The Alton Estate and its
contemporaries were seen as dwellings unfit for habitation.
Today the significant investment made by Wandsworth Council in improved
transport, reduced crime, engendering a sense of community, combined with
local initiatives to tackle waste management and liberate the park land have
transformed the estate to a place that people are happy to live in.
So far the Corbusien principles as applied at Roehampton have survived for 50
years, a benchmark suggested by Michael Fleetwood, and arguably have proved
successful.
5 • 50 Years of Roehampton
Introduction • 6
Introduction
Le Corbusier was an influential architect, planner and theorist of the nineteen
twenties who proposed radical and utopian ideas of how the cities of the future
should be planned and occupied. The use of high rise social housing, uniform
geometric layouts, districts shaped by use, and the segregation of transport were
key themes of Corbusier’s ideals.
The post war housing shortage and urban regeneration programme presented a
unique opportunity to architects of the fifties to build new towns, and to plan and
reshape large sections of our towns and cities. A group of young architects in the
London County Council, challenged at that time with designing a major housing
regeneration project at Roehampton near to Richmond Park in London, seized
on the opportunity to apply Le Corbusiers’s ideals
This study reviews the radical planning ideas of Le Corbusier to provide a context
for evaluating how they were incorporated at Roehampton. It then reviews the
development is in three eras;
1950 - To understand what was built and why
1970 - To establish how it compared to many of its contemporaries -
developments which were then being criticised as socially inadequate,
poorly constructed eyesores.
2006 - To see why it has remained and is regarded by many as a success,
when many of its contemporaries have been demolished
7 • 50 Years of Roehampton
Le Corbusier • 8
Le Corbusier
Contemporary City
A Contemporary City was conceived as one of Le Corbusier’s masterplans of
the utopian city, the case of the Contemporary City of Three Million Inhabitants
was shown at the Salon d’Automne, Paris in November 19221. Le Corbusier
approached the design of the city in a scientific manner, using technical analysis
and architectural synthesis, “Proceeding in the manner of the investigator in his
laboratory”. He established that the problem with the cities of today (meaning in
1922) was there lack of geometrical design meaning that they are dying through
there hap hazard arrangement.2 Uniformity he believed was the answer,
establishing that the result of a true geometrical layout is repetition, which in tern
leads to standardisation and that once there is standardisation then the building
process can be industrialised.3
1 Le Corbusier, The City of tomorrow and its planning. p163 2 Le Corbusier, The City of tomorrow and its planning. p175 3 Le Corbusier, The City of tomorrow and its planning. p175
9 • 50 Years of Roehampton
The city is designed around the main station which is at the very centre of the
city, “The only place for the station is in the centre of the city.” 4, surrounding the
station are the 24 sky-scrapers which form the business and hotel district of the
city5 sat in 3,600,000 square yards of gardens and parks.6 Surrounding the
centre of the city are the residential quarters which houses the ‘cellular’
residential blocks, six double stories high (six levels of maisonettes) with
‘hanging gardens’ over looking the park land which lies between the residential
blocks.7
Surrounding the city is the protected zone, and area of park land in which
building is prohibited, beyond which lies the garden cities where the sub-urban
dwellers would reside.
Le Corbusier theorised on the health implications of ‘the modern city’ (from the
nineteenth century) suggesting that the “…its demands affect our nervous
system in away that grows more and more dangerous.”8 He suggests that the
solution to this is quiet fresh air and open spaces, the city should be constructed
vertically with the residential blocks set back from the streets over looking large
parks.
“WE MUST BUILD IN THE OPEN” Le Corbusier
4 Le Corbusier, The City of tomorrow and its planning. p170 5 Le Corbusier, The City of tomorrow and its planning. p172 6 Le Corbusier, The City of tomorrow and its planning. p171 7 Le Corbusier, The City of tomorrow and its planning. p174 8 Le Corbusier, The City of tomorrow and its planning. p167
Le Corbusier • 10
Unité d’habitation
Unité d’habitation9
Le Corbusier was approached by the French Minister of Reconstruction in 1945
to create a prototype to address the housing shortage in France, which was so
acute as to demand four million dwellings within ten years.
Le Corbusier and his team of experts spent five years developing a prototype-
housing scheme for Marseilles known at the time as the Marseilles Block10.
Corbusier was heavily influence by the ideas of an atominous unity from Fourier’s
Phalanstere “a nineteenth-century commune of manageable size which would
determine its own collective destiny”11 and established ‘A Habitational Unite
Size’2 which consisted of 337 flats, housing 1600 people.
The structure is of reinforced-concrete and sits on stout pilotis containing the
services, elevating the building on to pilotis allows the landscape to flow freely
underneath. The exposed concrete of the exterior of the building is not only a
9 My book 10 Le Corbusier, The Marseilles Block translated by Geoffrey Sainsbury from the French L’Unite d’Habitation de Marseille (London: The Harvill Press, 1953) p.7/8. 11Le Corbusier, The Marseilles Block translated by Geoffrey Sainsbury from the French L’Unite d’Habitation de Marseille (London: The Harvill Press, 1953)
11 • 50 Years of Roehampton
design decision but comes as a result of the post war shortage of materials and
skilled labour.
The modular geometric design of the Unité causes repetition-allowing elements
of the building to be mass-produced, thus increasing the speed of building and
lowering costs. Corbusier also used this modular design to establish the way in
which people are housed in the Unité, and can be best understood using the
analogy of a wine rack, the wine rack- concrete frame houses the bottle – which
is the family unit, be it rich or poor, small or large. The bottles can be placed
anywhere in the wine rack not concerning as to what is in the bottle.12
The layout of the block is such that each apartment spans its full width, this is an
important design decision by Corbusier as it allows as much light into each
apartment as possible and the greatest access to views, having openings on
each side of the block also allows for the use of cross ventilation to keep them
cool. Le Corbusier felt strongly about the affect the dwelling has on the family
unit, and thus that each apartment in the Unité should encourage the activities
intended to happen within the dwelling to go on.13
12 Le Corbusier, The Marseilles Block 13 Le Corbusier, The Marseilles Block p16
Building of Roehampton • 12
Building of Roehampton
Post-War Britain
Following the Second World War the people of Britain were left with a huge
housing crisis, a quarter of all homes had been destroyed during the blitz, and
house building had come to a stand still. The newly elected Labour government
with the newly created welfare state wanted to tackle housing as up-most
priority.14
London County Council
The real starting point for the London County Council or L.C.C. was its
contributions to the Festival of Britain. Designed with the feel good factor in mind
the festival was seen as an opportunity to leave the austerity of the Second
World War behind, bringing colour and modern architecture to London’s South
Bank. The festival symbolised a new society and a new optimism, acting as a
platform for modern architecture.15
One of the key features of the festival of Britain was the Royal Festival Hall,
which was one of the first post war buildings in Britain to not only be
commissioned by London County Council but also to be designed and built by
the L.C.C, Leslie Martin was appointed to run the festival hall project.
14 Homes for Heroes, (London: BBC, 2004) 15 Charles Jencks, Homes for Heroes, (London: BBC, 2004)
13 • 50 Years of Roehampton
The Alton Estate
The Alton Estate Roehampton was designed by a group of young architects at
London County Council under Lesley Martin in the mid fifties. The L.C.C became
the place where the young and radical architects aspired to work, unlike today
where they are more likely to aspire to work in a Norman Foster, Richard Rogers
practice.16
The estate was built in two stages by rival teams within the L.C.C who both took
inspiration from very different sources, “Almost as if the theoretical debate was
being argued out in practice”.17
The estate is located next to the village of Roehampton on the north border of
Richmond Park, London. The estate comes under the current borough of
Wandsworth.
Site Plan18
16 Jonathan Glancey, Homes for Heroes, (London: BBC, 2004) 17 Richard Rogers, Homes for Heroes, (London: BBC, 2004)
Building of Roehampton • 14
Alton East takes its influences from Scandinavia using traditional materials, the
buildings however being modern in design. Many see this approach as a much
more mild approach and feel that the Scandinavian style can become
monotonous and boring requiring a much more vigorous approach.
The designers of Alton West took this more vigorous approach. Alton west is
seen to have a much more Mediterranean feel about it “the spirit of Le Corbusier
presides over everything.”19 The blocks are arranged in much more formal
patterns within the park land, the blocks themselves constructed using a formal
geometry. Richard Rogers likes the level of geometrical form to that of a
Palladian house.20
The five main blocks that make up Alton west sit on Corbusien style Pilotis,
allowing the surrounding parkland to appear to run seamlessly under the blocks.
Each block is eleven stories, made up of five levels of two-story maisonettes.
The maisonettes appear to have been slotted into the mass concrete frame
which forms the Unité style brise-soleil and balcony access. The juxtapositioning
of the slab blocks means that one block is not over looking another but looking
past it towards Richmond Park.
18 Architects’ Journal (March 30th, 1977) p594 19 Richard Rogers, Homes for Heroes, (London: BBC, 2004) 20 Richard Rogers, Homes for Heroes, (London: BBC, 2004)
15 • 50 Years of Roehampton
21Each maisonette is similar to a traditional
house in layout with living space downstairs,
bedrooms upstairs. The internal layout is also
remarkably similar to that of Le Corbusier’s Unité
d’habitation with many of the devises used by
Corbusier also being used; such as full width
flats so as to provide cross ventilation, brise-
soleil which while in Marseilles are used to
block the sun in Roehampton make sun traps.
21 Building (September 1953) p341
Block Flat Plan21
Alton West shortly after completion
The Dying Dream • 16
The Dying Dream
The Alton estate had set out to “carry us forward to a new and better tomorrow’22
culminating the ideas of post war modernism, taking influences towards the
vision of Utopia “a synthesis of social and architectural aspirations”23
So why in 1977 is the estate so far from the ideals it set out to achieve?
The estate aimed to give a high standard of housing to those to which economic
forces had denied, however it was these economic forces that started the down
turn of Roehampton. The Labour government and welfare state at the time the
estate was built anticipated that the influence the economy had on housing would
be tamed – especially in light of the political climate in Russia at the time which
leant towards a more socialist society. However the economic forces remained
strong resulting in those who could afford their house with a garden did so and
Roehampton just became more social housing.
Le Corbusier’s vision was not of slab blocks filled with the more deprived in
society but a colourful mixture of people from all walks of life and social
backgrounds.
The design of the estate also proved to become problematic, not able to adapt to
the changes in society, or in some cases society not able to adapt to the new
modernist designs. With the exception of a handful of ground floor flats and
22 Architects’ Journal 1977, p597 23 Michael Fleetwood, Architects’ Journal 1977
17 • 50 Years of Roehampton
maisonettes none of the dwellings have private gardens, just shared public
parkland between the blocks. However, British society has always carried a
stigma with not owning your own house in its own plot of land, not renting a flat in
a slab block and sharing your land with everyone else on the estate. It is often
said that “… an Englishman’s home is his castle”.
The estate management has also hindered the success of the estate, filling the
public spaces with signs informing residence “No Ball Games” and “Keep off the
Grass” effectively saying that the parkland is there for you to look at but not use,
an aspect which certainly distracts from Le Corbusier’s vision.
Tenants in the slab blocks also had to contend with reduced levels of privacy as
the access balconies are so narrow so as that you have to pass closely in front of
your neighbour’s kitchen windows. Those who live at the beginning of the access
balconies also have to endure the noise and smell resulting from being situated
next to the under sized garbage shoots, which frequently became blocked.
Experimenting with concrete construction also played its part in the blocks
demise, thermal bridging and poor ventilation resulted in condensation forming in
the maisonettes.
State of “The Blocks”, Architects’ Journal 1977
Roehampton 50 Years on • 18
Roehampton 50 Years on
“Midwinter morning, first impressions – if ever the expression ‘location, location,
location’ was relevant, it is here. The most imposing thing about the area is the
feeling of space, the five large slab blocks sit elegantly on columns within the
vast park just lightly touching the ground, as if not to disturb it. Upon arrival the
blocks dominate the sky line but don’t however feel imposing, they sit back at the
top of the hill scaled by there distance and the whole vista has feel of looking up
at the Royal Crescent in Bath.
The Park is alive with people walking dogs, children out with their fathers and
estates keepers collecting rubbish.
Community Support officers take the time out to talk to people waiting for buses –
of which there are many standing waiting to take residents off to various parts of
London. People say ‘hello’ as they pass each other in the street and the shopping
street has the same bustling nature of a market, which all gives an overwhelming
sense of community. The overall nature of the place is very unthreatening
considering that it is an inner-London council estate and in ones mind could be
linked with such estates as Broadwater Farm Estate, Tottenham the scene of
riots 20 years ago.
The blocks themselves appear to be very well kept, there were no signs of graffiti
or vandalism, and the structure has aged well. The concrete façade still has
vibrancy about it and the set back windows are not faded or crumbling………….”
19 • 50 Years of Roehampton
Alton Estate West24
Le Corbusier would ,know doubt, be delighted to find an such a good example of
his ideals – a proud set of buildings in acres of parkland still serving the
community. What accounts for the transformation from the dark days of the
nineteen seventies to the Roehampton of today?
Regeneration of the Community
During the past ten years the council in charge of running the estate, now
Wandsworth Borough Council, has injected large amounts of money into the
regeneration of the area, a range of the aspects invested in are:-
• Increasing the number Police officers in Roehampton as part of the Safer
Neighbourhood Scheme to in order to combat crime and increase safety.
24 Phillip Wilson, 2007
Roehampton 50 Years on • 20
• Reaching the Isolated Elderly in Roehampton, part of a scheme to bridge
generation gap on the estate and help build a sense of community
• Planning for a Saturday market to allow residence access to fresh health
food.
• Hub for Business and employment advice to encourage businesses to set
up in the area and increase local employment levels.25
These schemes are design to improve the overall standard of living in the area
and thus make the area more desirable to live in.
Built to last
Management of the estate has been improved also to favour residents. Roads
are no longer covered with parking restrictions, park areas have been opened up
to free use by all- a children’s play area has even been created to actively
encourage children to play in the open spaces. In affect the park land between
the blocks has been handed back to the residents.
One of the criticisms of the blocks in the 1970’s was there in ability to handle the
increased amounts of household waste, causing rubbish to get stuck in the
rubbish shoots, pile up in the bin stores and subsequently get blown around the
estate. The council now employs waste management persons to keep on top of
the rubbish build ups, also the introduction of a recycling scheme on the estate
as resulted in the amount of rubbish being reduced.
25 Investment areas sourced from: Roehampton Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy (http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/wlsp/wlspnrsandnrf.htm) and Roehampton Regeneration and Safety Overview (http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/moderngov Paper No 06-668
21 • 50 Years of Roehampton
Why has Roehampton survived to be a success, while so many of its
contemporary’s have failed and since been pulled down?
A large number of Roehamptons failed contemporaries differ from the five slab
blocks in many ways; Roehampton stayed true to Corbusier ideals situating the
blocks in large areas of park land, evenly spaced out to create habitable open
space between the blocks. Others however were built much more closely
together with a precinct between them as apposed to park land. This made them
very unappealing places to live, and the juxtapositioning of the blocks and
precincts made them very difficult to police therefore crime was often high.
Roehampton also has the advantage of bordering Richmond Park, giving easy
access to even larger areas of park land; having access to such large amounts of
open space makes the slab block flats more appealing when compared to the
other alternatives around the London area, where flats will often have no gardens
or easy access to public gardens.
One factor which led to the demise of many similar high rise estates was the
structural integrity of the buildings themselves; a large number had major
problems with damp as a result of condensation forming on cold bridged
structural elements in the poorly ventilated flats. Damp also occurred due to
horizontal moisture penetration through poor construction techniques, an
example of which is Balloon Woods in Nottingham, pulled down in the early
Roehampton 50 Years on • 22
Eighties when it was decided that the levels of damp and mould in the flats made
them a health hazard.
The Roehampton blocks however have avoided such an end down to there initial
well built and designed construction, having the flats span the full width of the
block allowing cross ventilation helps stop the flats becoming damp.
23 • 50 Years of Roehampton
Summing Up • 24
Summing Up
In his 1977 article in the Architects’ Journal Michael Fleetwood wrote “To make a
reasonable historical assessment of a work of art or architecture, we probably
need a minimum span of 50 years.”
Roehampton has had its 50 years now so how has it faired? The state of
Roehampton has by no means been a plato, like all areas it has peeked and
troughed.
Roehampton in its design, in part, stuck very closely to Le Corbusier’s principles
which may be reason to its success. Many of Roehampton’s contemporaries
which deviated more from Corbusier’s ideals have been less successful and
since been demolished.
The main laps period of the Alton estate was during the nineteen-seventies when
elsewhere around the country many other high-rise estates were being built,
many of which were of poor build quality and thus caused high-rise developments
to become very unpopular places to live.
Its difficult to determine whether the failings of the estate during the 1970’s was
down to poor design or due to the sociological opinions of the time which did not
fit in which Corbusien principle on which the Roehampton estate’s design is
based.
So what does the future hold in store for the Roehampton Estate, will it be able to
survive another 50 years, especially with the increasing pressures to live in an
environmentally sustainable way, can the 1950’s blocks adapt to become
sustainable?
25 • 50 Years of Roehampton
Bibliography • 26
Bibliography
Le Corbusier, The Marseilles Block translated by Geoffrey Sainsbury from the
French L’Unite d’Habitation de Marseille (London: The Harvill Press, 1953)
Le Corbusier, The City of tomorrow and its planning. (New York: Dover
Publications, 1987)
Jean-Louis Cohen, Le Corbusier.(Hohenzollernring: Taschen, 2004)
The Builder, July 31st, 1953. P164-165
Building, September 1953. P340-342
Architectural Design, February 1955. P50-51
Architect and Building News, June 11th, 1958. P766-771
Architects’ Journal, November 5th, 1959. P461-477
Architects’ Journal, March 30th, 1977. P593-60
Roslind Bayley, Celebrating Special Buildings, The Case for Conserving Post-
War Public Housing. 2002