Throughout the 1950s to 1970s, modern architecture spawned Brutalism, a raw concrete and polemical aesthetic that was adopted by East London’s Poplar – home to two brutalist heroes, Balfron Tower (1967) and its neighbouring Robin Hood Gardens (1972). Both were built to promote a sense of neighbourliness and inhabitant movement through communal walkways, playgrounds and interconnectivity between inside and out.
Robin Hood Gardens, Tower Hamlets, London: the garden facade of the ten-storey slab block, © Janet Hall / RIBA Collections, 1972.
Designed by Ernő Goldfinger, the 27-storey Balfron Tower is commonly dubbed the “younger sister” of Trellick Tower, its 31-storey, West London counterpart. Balfron gained Grade II listing in 1996, protecting it from the demolition that is likely to befall Alison and Peter Smithson’s less fortunate Robin Hood Gardens, which has very recently been given immunity from listing for the second time.
Children playing in the ‘street in the sky’ at Robin Hood Gardens, © Laura Chan, 2010.
Having lived in Balfron Tower for two years from 2009, I felt a poignant sadness when its flats were privately sold, resulting in my former neighbours being vacated, in preparation for its transformation into luxury flats. The eviction of Balfron’s residents mirrors the “decanting” of Robin Hood’s tenants due to its imminent razing. As with the demise of many brutalist icons, the fates of both buildings are paragons for the much-maligned architectural style.
Robin Hood Gardens: close-up of the fenestration, © David Borland / RIBA Collections, 2008.
From my experience of living in the high-rise that imparts what architect James Dunnett called, “a delicate sense of terror,” I know all too well the downsides of living in a 1960s concrete high-rise: cockroaches live behind the concrete panels and the complex water system means you never quite know where leaks are coming from. Maintenance issues aside, it was an absolute joy to live on the twenty-first floor. From this height, London was in the palm of my hands; and my eye-line, at the level of the horizon.
View of Canary Wharf from Balfron Tower, Flat 115, © Laura Chan, 2010.
A strong sense of movement is felt in Goldfinger’s sculptural design. He intended to underscore fluid passage in both towers by separating the services shaft from the main residential block and connecting them with suspended walkways or ‘streets in the sky’. With these ‘bridge’-like enclosures, Goldfinger sought to construct a romantic image of moving relationships, chance encounters and neighbourliness; a core ambition of Brutalism, further demonstrated by its structural honesty in the continuation of materials from interior to exterior.
Plan and elevation sketch of bridge access to Balfron Tower, RIBA Collections, 1965.
Designed as an “ordered shell”, Goldfinger’s towers play a vital role in what he called, “the human drama.” Like dancers, Goldfinger saw people as “time and space bound,” always enclosed by space, even if this sense of enclosure was conveyed by the sky. Writing extensively on the emotional effect of architecture, Goldfinger suggested that we are aware at some level of the way space encloses, that: “you are in the street even if you are out of doors”.
First version design for Balfron Tower: north-west corner perspective of Block A’s service tower, RIBA Collections, 1965.
Design for Balfron Tower: west elevation, RIBA Collections, 1965.
Within Balfron Tower, human movement pauses while waiting for the lift, and as the high-rise only has two, people are often subjected to long delays. Once inside the lift, the building takes over the dance. The tower’s vertical ribbon windows indicate the movement inside the services tower, of the up and downward motion of the lifts. When the desired floor is reached, the horizontal glazing corresponds with the direction of travel across the walkways leading to the dwellings. In this way, the building can be seen as more than a passive receptor for circulation, as it echoes the movement of the body.
Glenkerry House, Carradale House and Balfron Tower, Rowlett Street, © Christopher Hope-Fitch / RIBA Collections. 2010.
In 1968 Goldfinger moved into flat 130 on the top floor, where he and his wife hosted champagne-fuelled parties. Residents were invited to discuss their flats and how they could be improved. Equipped with this knowledge, Goldfinger went onto design the taller and better-known, Trellick Tower. As a result, the spatial design of Trellick is a further continuation of its inhabitants’ movements. Doors slide into walls, rooms partition into different spaces and windows rotate for cleaning – an appropriation of space is acquired by both body and architecture in a dynamic display; the dance of the everyday.
Balfron Tower, Rowlett Street, Poplar, London, © David Borland / RIBA Collections, 2008.
In 2010, I took part in Simon Terrill’s grand photographic project of Balfron Tower and its residents (above: squint and you can see me on the balcony at the furthest right side, six floors from the top). Using a large-format camera, the artist-in-residence flooded the tower with stage lighting, signalling when each shot was being taken with sound cues. He explains, “Each exposure lasted for 10 seconds and so with the opening of the lens, a strange stillness came over the building as movement would result in blurred erasure and those present needed to be stationary in order to remain visible.”
Balfron Tower at night with its residents, © Simon Terrill, 2010.
Terrill captured Balfron Tower in a glorious, eerie hue. Looking at this image, I hark back to the days before the dance had begun; when I waited for the lift… For it to take me up – for my journey’s end was only reached when I’d crossed the twenty-first street in the sky.
