Becontree, in the London borough of Barking and Dagenham, is the largest public housing estate in the world. Still to this day, apparently. As a Londoner of many years, if not a born and bred one, I was surprised that not once had I visited the place. That's something I plan to remedy in October of this year when I lead an LbF (London by Foot) walk, Homes for Heroes, in and around the area.
But, before that, it was time for some research and Lived in Architecture - Becontree at 100 with Verity Jane-Keefe at the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) building in Marylebone was not merely convenient. It was in fact the very thing that highlighted the existence of Becontree to me. On its one hundredth birthday. Not only had I not been to Becontree but, a full century after it was built, I knew next to nothing about it.
So I was eager to learn but, to be brutally honest, the RIBA show was a little prismatic for my tastes. Perhaps that's why during my visit I was the sole person there. Ah well, at least it meant I could dispense with the mask and not have my glasses steam up.
There were several small, interlocking, rooms, some of which contained models and images, and one larger room which contained a film showing scenes from present day Becontree. It is these that make up the bulk of the imagery used in this blog. Basically, if there's no title underneath an image it's from the film.
Constructed between 1921 and 1935 when the need for interwar housing became urgent, Becontree was initially in Essex until boundary changes in 1965 meant it came under the jurisdiction of Greater London and, eventually, the borough of Barking and Dagenham. By the time of the estate's completion, it had 26,000 homes in which lived roughly 100,000 people.
I'll go into more of that when I lead, and then write about, the walk in October but this piece is about my experience at the RIBA as much as it is Becontree itself and the experience was a little confusing - if ultimately worthwhile. It consisted of the brief stories of some buildings, for instance C.F.A.Voysey's Orchard in Chorleywood, that have been deemed to be influential to the design and development of Becontree.
Charles Francis Annesley Voysey - The Orchard, Chorleywood, Hertfordshire (1900)
Charles Rennie Mackintosh - Hill House, Helensburgh, Scotland (window details) (1903)
Voysey, and - in Glasgow - Charles Rennie Mackintosh, were Arts and Crafts kind of guys so although Voysey's work was none too grand, Mackintosh's a little more so, it still looks a little fancy for an early public housing project. More relatable is the story of how when the popularity of decorative stucco waned in most of England from the 17th century onwards it remained popular in the Eastern counties of Essex and Suffolk. Areas I've always felt have had a very specific architectural feel.
A style I sometimes, perhaps incorrectly, imagine to be inspired by these counties proximity to the Netherlands and northern Germany. In Essex, and elsewhere, these days they tend to call it pargeting. It's a development from the Arts and Crafts technique of using local and natural elements to create an English vernacular that was pleasing to the eye and yet able to be replicated on grand scale.
Though with the important distinction that owners of these homes could easily personalise and adapt their dwellings. There's been much criticism over the decades of such vernacular architecture and it usually amounts to nothing more than snobbery. Working class people have no taste, they have ugly satellite dishes and ornamental lions adoring their gaudy properties, and they should, essentially, stay in their lane.
What a load of complete and utter hogwash. Though I'm no fan of aspirational culture (primarily because aspiration always seems to be towards wealth and material possession rather than health, contentment, and good relationships) it seems to stink to high heaven that those with money should look down at those trying to better themselves in the best way they know how.
I've come to dislike Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party for its condescending manner (though many other Mike Leigh films I still love) and even a band as good as Radiohead, in songs like Street Spirit and No Surprises, make comments that seem to allude to their disgust at lower middle class mores and manners.
Alienation within suburbia is understandable and real. I've experienced it. But you can't force your teenage angst on everyone else, not least when you're a long way from being a teenager. Many people like living in these places. Many people aspire towards living in these places. I need to understand places like Becontree from their perspective.
Harry Douglas Blessey - Design for Alterations and Additions to a House, South Glamorgan, Wales:West Elevation (1905)
Plurality of architectural styles blossomed in the early 19c as the industrial age led to a growing middle class who were keen to display their new found wealth. Architects were commissioned to recreate homes and other buildings in Renaissance, Gothic, Tudor, and Italianate styles and rural idylls were imitated in urban contexts.
A fictional authenticity was created and in Becontree today there are still pediments, columns, and balustrades that can be traced back to this period. It would be easy to prefix the architectural terms listed above with demeaning terms like 'faux' or 'cod' and though that would not be entirely incorrect it also harks back to the snobbery I wrote about earlier. Why should people living in polluted cities not want to feel as if they are in the country some times? Why should people whose parents and grandparents have grown up in far worse conditions, from tenement blocks to sooty terraces, not wish to create a safer and cleaner home for their own children?
George Vuillamy - Study of Column from Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome, Italy (1842)
At a time when foreign travel was prohibitively expensive, and all but impossible, for all but the wealthiest in the land why would you not want a piece of Italy or a piece of Greece in your own home? If you couldn't identify the difference between Corinthian, Doric, and Ionic columns does that really mean you have to live in a shed?
The Regency style that became popular in many British towns between 1810 and 1830 saw a revival in these form of classical architecture. Perhaps most notable among the leading lights of the style was John Nash who built much of Bath but RIBA have decided to show the works of less celebrated men like George Wightwick, a former assistant to John Soane, and Robert Lewis Roumieu.
Robert Lewis Roumieu - Designs for Alterations and Additions to a House in, Bushey Heath, London (1850)
Robert Lewis Roumieu - Designs for Alterations and Additions to a House in, Bushey Heath, London (1850)
Whereas men like Nash and Soane were established enough to create the buildings they wanted and to choose which work they accepted, men like Roumieu had to cater more to the whims of his nouveau riche clients. To indulge them a little. For this reason, him and others were often expected to produce two or more potential designs in differing styles before a commission was earned. You can see examples in Roumieu's Bushey Heath sketches above.
The reason these sketches are at the RIBA is because it is these styles, and more so the mixing of them - sacrosanct in hi-falutin' architectural circles, that is the key to Becontree's individuality. If you don't know the rules you can't play by them.
A ceramic lion on a two up two down may get sneered at by those who worship at the altar of Nikolaus Pevsner but it may bring joy to a child, to a parent, and to a passer by. Not everyone has to be Andrea Palladio.
It helps that many of the shots of Becontree included in the film were taken on a sunny day. Everything looks better on a sunny day. But Verity Jane-Keefe makes an interesting point about another way we can look at the homes of Becontree and similarly dismissed estates.
Large, grand, architectural projects are often designed to the nth degree and, once completed, immediately revered or, sometimes, derided. There is a focus on perfection which almost precludes sympathetic alterations and amendments further down the line. The likes of Becontree rarely bother architectural critics so these homes are free, or freer, to breathe. They have more possibility. More capability even.
Verity Jane-Keefe's contention is hardly a contention at all. Architecture should not just be celebrated for its newness but admired for its longevity, its durability, and its adaptability. That doesn't put her so much at odds with those of a more modernist persuasion as you may think. The radical interwar architectural group Tecton (think London's Highpoint II and, strangely, lots of zoos) were, in the 1930s, commissioned to restore a Georgian villa in West London that had been built, originally, for a clergyman in 1786.
Walter Gropius & Maxwell Fry - 66 Old Church Street, London:The Street Front (1972)
Of course it looks dated now, and the car parked out front even more so, but here, to me, is a highly sympathetic fusion of the modern and the traditional. Where modern techniques combine with long held practices to fuse into a style that works for everyone. It's not so much a compromise as a simple, yet almost radical, solution to a building need.
Following the bomb damage of World War II it was parts of the East End of London, going out towards Becontree, that needed these solutions the most urgently so the innovations of Gropius (who being German decided, understandably, to get out of Britain before the war as he had Germany in 1933 to escape the rise of Hitler) continued in the hands of home grown architects.
Halsey Ralph Ricardo - Working Drawings for Alterations and Additions to Crimbourne Farm, Kirdford (1925)
But not just architects. Home owners too - and it is the home owners, the people of Becontree, who have really made the place their own. As home owners do all over the country and the world. The RIBA exhibition was interesting if a little bit digressive but, for me, it gave me a feel for Becontree and some ideas to incorporate into October's walk.
More than that it made me look at, on the surface, quite prosaic dwellings in a new way and that, more than anything else, was the takeaway I got from Lived in Architecture. A house is not just the bricks and mortar (or concrete, glass, steel, wood etc;) it is built of but is a project for those who dwell in it, it is a safe space, and it is a repository of memories and emotions. These are not just houses. They are homes - sweet homes.
No comments:
Post a Comment