Stock bricks to Brutalism: housing design in Poplar

2016-04-08T05:07:00-04:00

The East End of London has been associated with many things: the “cockney” sense of humour; colourful criminals; waves of immigration; and poverty. Not many people associate it with architecture. But it was in Poplar in the south eastern corner of the East End that I chose to do my architectural guided walk, called Stock Bricks to Brutalism: Housing Design History in Poplar. The reasons can be found in the great regeneration of the area’s housing that took place in the twentieth century to address the problems of overcrowding, dilapidation, poor sanitation and bomb damage.

In this one locality, Poplar, you can trace the progression of social housing design from the end of the First World War through to the early 1980s – the days of high volume council housebuilding in the UK – from blocks of flats of the 1920s, 1930s and 1950s built using “stock brick” (London’s traditional building material made from the clay on which the city stands) to 1960s and 1970s tower and slab blocks built i...

London architect 'duped' into designing Jack the Ripper museum

2015-08-05T17:57:00-04:00

The architect behind the new Jack the Ripper museum in east London has said he was duped over the purpose of the project, after what was billed as a museum of women’s history became an attraction about Britain’s most notorious murderer of women. [...] "We really ran with it. We did it at a bargain-basement fee, at cost price because we thought it was a great thing to do." "You do rely on the moral fibre of your client but you should also be able to rely on the planning system"

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Stock bricks to Brutalism: housing design in Poplar

London architect 'duped' into designing Jack the Ripper museum