Thumping ambition and demolition: 10 high-rises that changed modern Britain

"There is nothing, it seems to me, more appalling, more deadening in the urban landscape than a uniform mass of low buildings covering acres and acres High dwellings I think, really very high dwellings are an enormous enhancement of the scene. So said Evelyn Sharp, civil servant and powerhouse within the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, in 1955. Seventy years later, many would disagree."

"High-rise blocks are regularly denounced as ugly concrete monoliths: repetitive, plain, inhuman, boring These so-called eyesores, however, were conceived as the polar opposite. The tall modern buildings were supposed to break up the repetitive, sooty dreariness of Victorian low-rise vistas and the swelling suburbs decried as neither town nor country. And, whatever their critics may say, they have shaped modern Britain, from the five- or six-storey blocks hailed as high-rise in the 1930s to the postwar structures of more than 30 floors."

"Kensal House, co-designed by Maxwell Fry and Elizabeth Denby, heralded a fresh prototype for working-class housing: bright, warm, comfortable and sociable. Its flats had two or three bedrooms, private balconies, pram sheds and labour-saving kitchens with up-to-date appliances. The bedrooms faced east, to catch the morning sun, and the living rooms west, for light in the afternoon. The estate had two social clubs, a nursery, a playground and allotments."

High-rise blocks were conceived to counter repetitive, sooty Victorian low-rise streets and the indistinct swelling suburbs by introducing tall modern buildings that enhanced urban scenes. Public perception later shifted, with many decrying high-rises as ugly, repetitive concrete monoliths. High-rise construction has nonetheless shaped modern Britain from 1930s five- or six-storey blocks to postwar towers exceeding thirty floors. Interwar modernist trends influenced new working-class housing prototypes such as Kensal House, co-designed by Maxwell Fry and Elizabeth Denby, which offered bright, warm, sociable flats with two or three bedrooms, private balconies, pram sheds, labour-saving kitchens, east-facing bedrooms, social clubs, a nursery, playground and allotments.

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