This story caught my eye in the Glasgow Herald. Two blocks of flats in the Gorbals area of the city have been demolished to make way for 100 new homes. Stories of high rise destruction always fill me with delight as I believe them to be the most odious expressions of architectural failure in existence (a clear distinction must be made between tower block of flats and skyscrapers).
Glasgow has the highest percentage of council and former council housing stock of any city in the United Kingdom. Approach the city from any angle and you cannot fail to notice the copious numbers of high rise carbuncles littering the urban landscape. Glasgow had, pre-WW2, the worst housing in Britain. Thus, when the trend for high rise living came along in the 1950s, Scotland's premier city experimented more than any other with rapid slum clearance and mass tower block construction. Today there are more than 250 in a city less than 15 miles wide.
Trends come and go. Today, these awful eyesores are being pulled down at a fast rate. Three such blocks in Halifax alone will be razed in a few months time (another was knocked down in 1999). This bring me to the nub of my concerns. Every city in the UK is currently being blitzed with 'luxury apartments' (have you ever met anyone who can actually afford one?). Enter Leeds, Newcastle, Nottingham, Birmingham, etc., and you see cityscapes transformed by glass and steel monoliths. What if, in forty or so years time, the trend for sardine-tin living is once again rejected for something approaching a decent and spacious house? Will our cities, having been subjected to the fickle emotions of fashion, again turn into mass building sites because nobody wants to live in apartment blocks, themselves disintegrating through lack of quality build materials. I think we are making the same mistake as the forefathers of British city planning made at the end of the war. Again, it seems we are slow to learn from past errors.
Andrew, dont be too harsh on the councillors in the 50s, In Liverpool we were building 10000 new houses a year in 1954, yet still had 56000 on the waiting list,88000 exisiting houses were unfit for habitation.
IN 1954 the national government in London told local councils they had to build high rise blocks of between 17 and 20 stories otherwise they wouldnt get any subsidies for housing, local authorities had to include multi storey plans when submitting slum clearence plans also architects,designers and building firms were pro multi storey.
Posted by: scouseproud | February 27, 2006 at 11:10 PM
plus the fact that limited space in urban areas dictates that the only way is up. but it would be nice if they could build something that is pleasing to the eye, for both tenant and observer.
and you managed to pass comment withour resorting to left wing conspiracy. those pills mustve kicked in.
Posted by: daytripper | February 28, 2006 at 12:57 AM
AMcC;'What if, in forty or so years time, the trend for sardine-tin living is once again rejected for something approaching a decent and spacious house?'
*Maybe the planners realise that increasingly the workers of this generation are being squeezed to a point whereby they don’t have time to maintain a proper house with a decent amount of room and a proper garden. With the ‘equality’ of both partners being equally squeezed and forced to work long hours, and with our retirement being robbed from us, who will have time for gardening?.
Posted by: hsbguzzler | February 28, 2006 at 08:59 AM