14 Apr Housing architecture and lessons from history
Discovering the housing landscapes around east London on a Museum of the Home tour.
Eclectic building styles around Bethnal Green and Hoxton
We started at Paradise Gardens which historically would have been a wealthy street in a poor area. Although it is Grade 2 listed, its setting means it’s often overlooked. Sitting on a busy junction, the Georgian terrace is a little run down and despite there being development around it, it feels quite unloved as a space.
Moving on, we reached the former Waterlow Estate, behind Bethnal Green Road. This is an area I’d discovered during lockdown so it was interesting to learn more about it. The Improved Industrial Dwellings Company started in 1869 and acted as a precursor to a housing association in their set-up. Much was admired from this estate and it is thought to have influenced the building of The Boundary Estate nearby by London County Council.
We also saw Art Deco blocks, post-war estates – Festival of Britain era with sculpture added to estates – and 1950s and 1970s local authority estates which showed the changes in estate building over time.
Next was The Winkley Estate. Laid out as a combined housing and industrial development built between 1898 and 1904 which looks very much how it was built. Adjacent is Keeling House, built in the 1950s in a modernist style and sold off in 1999 having been council housing.
What can we learn in relation to housing
- There’s more consideration given to tenants now around rehousing with the right to return or to be compensated. When the railway was developed in Bethnal Green, housing was demolished and tenants were expected to make their own arrangements as to where they moved to.
Section 106-type funding from developers means there should be some community gain (now) when large scale developments take place. - The large scale planned clearance of housing is long established – sometimes it goes ahead and other times it is cancelled – but this has also played a part in the lack of affordable housing which most places are struggling with now.
- The combination of residential and industrial served the neighbourhood well with the Winkley Estate still retaining shops, studio and work spaces amongst it. On estate redevelopments now, there is more thought given (and consultation undertaken) as to the spaces and facilities that are needed for residents. It would be good if new build developments could also start factoring this in as opposed to the many new estates still built around households having multiple cars.
- While housing associations have grown as local authorities manage less of their housing stock, they can be traced back to the 1860s with The Improved Industrial Dwellings Company predating this meaning they are a far from new model of housing management.
- Development wasn’t all about housing. Many of the parks in the area where created from bomb damaged sites, for example Weavers Fields, which explains why (now) there is a Victorian school somewhat marooned on the edge of a park as there would have been streets surrounding it.
- In some cases, predating the concept of ‘meanwhile’ use, temporary housing was built to deal with bomb damaged sites while the population was declining.
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