we'll make plans for buildings and houses
aw! but i thought it kinda appropriate...i just really like the word 'polytechnic'
Slothrop said:
Out of interest, is anyone still building modernist-esque social housing that attempts to correct the assumptions of the 50's / 60's - especially, afaict (feel free to attack these if you feel I've missed the point)
i) the oversimplified conception of social dynamics and of what people want from a home
ii) that concrete will continue to look good for some time in a cold wet climate and
iii) that local authorities will spend large amounbts of money completing all the details of the project and maintaining them afterwards?
Or are we condemned to more and more generic semis that seek comfort in copying the basic look of older houses but without applying the craftsmanship, materials and attention to detail that makes them either attractive or pleasant to live in.
I've seen a fair number of public, commercial and institutional buildings that rock a modified functionalism very nicely, but never housing.
these are very very interesting questions...
i) can you expand on this a bit? cos this is for me a class question. eg, the barbican
is socially considered a 'success', and is not coincidentally inhabited mainly by the very wealthy. the very similar (styllistically speaking) thamesmead development
is considered a failure, and is inhabited by the very poor. the alienation 'caused' by these structures depends i think on the alienation the inhabitants already feel. but the 'social dynamics' are horribly complicated. the brutalists (smithsons etc) thought that their streets in the sky would be more attentive to the social needs of their working class inhabitants than the le corbusier inspired 'radiant cities' (eg alton estate in roehampton, with its masses of green space, its lack of a centre) and are now equally derided.
ii) again some 60s types- the smithsons again f'rinstance- already made this criticism. but yeah it is an unanswerable one. something like the National Theatre
i love dearly but have to admit a certain crapness when it gets damp...truth to materials perhaps not always a good thing...
iii) will they fuck.
as to the last point-- hmm well its conspicuous by its absence. no-one seems interested in the question of social housing anymore. i would love to see the capitalist constructivists like norman foster and richard rogers attempt social housing...or even the more touchy-feely likes of will alsop or david adaje...but its really not where the money is, is it...? there is this, in manchester
http://www.newislington.co.uk/#
but it looks a bit twee- taking anti-fuctionalism to a rather wilfully eccentric level; and also rather exclusive as well- rather like greenwich millenium village
http://www.c20society.org.uk/docs/building/gmv.html: fascinating in a desolate, ballardian way, but by no stretch of the imagination social housing.
one can't really conceive social housing without a concommitant idea of the social. and there, i would say, is the rub...