The Smithsons on Housing

[@doomcontrol]

Very interesting film. For whatever faults the Robin Hood Gardens has from our perspective today, it's obvious that the architects were concerned about the human dimension of urban mass housing, and about dealing with urban stresses in a proactive way. If not, at least they talk a good game. I can't imagine the modern re-developers of the site having such a philosophical orientation regarding their high-rise micro-flat proposal.

[@LosBerkos]

+Scott H Jackson If the developers of micro-flats have a philosophical orientation at all, it must be strongly nihilistic.

[@johnllewlyndavies222]

There are a lot of people about who are bonkers who think they know what's good for others. Not for themselves, of course.

[@tranzco1173]

Did you see her cool gold metal spacesuit!

[@sharedvision]

Goodness such joyless people

[@kiwitoffee]

Mr Smithson promotes 'a new mode of urban organisation' in Poplar, London, essentially concrete boxes for storing people in. Mr Smithson himself chose to live in South Kensington.

[@williamisaac3677]

I wonder if the great JG Ballard watched this when writing the fantastic ‘High Rise.’

[@petershadbolt63]

Fascinating documentary. Interesting that they found the argument that they were building housing deemed 'too good' for the people for whom it was intended 'unacceptable'. More strength to them. This kind of snobbery/tired right-wing fatalism still informs attacks on public housing for disadvantaged groups around the world. It's the same kind of response that met Glenn Murcutt's revolutionary ideas for Aboriginal housing in Australia.

[@carlnicholls2604]

I Have to agree, great film.

[@NormSpupsEntertainment]

Incredible! absolutely amazing video, Thankyou so much for uploading.

[@Westlake72]

thank you for uploading.

[@TBBTQuotes]

Really appreciate it, thanks for the upload.

[@tiglia7054]

love his tie

[@oldladyspecial]

I have that same silver jacket! :D

[@christhompson7547]

Wasn’t that 1960’s Mary Quant.

[@elelegidosf9707]

This is a classic example of what happens when government tells people what they want and what's good for them, as opposed to asking people what they want.

[@scotarris7280]

I watched way too much of this...fml

[@Truthseeker1515]

Social housing on this scale cannot escape the economic logic of marginal costs so no one should be surprised or shocked of the building outcome. Flats are functional by nature. Colourful cladding could certainly have mitigated the dark and the grey. As to vandalism, why always blame the tenants? A little condescending I would say.

[@peterkyte7922]

I have seen the video and it really comes over that the Smithsons are very condescending and of a very strong opinion about what is 'right'. What Mrs. Smithson says in the beginning about losing outmoded and outdated tenements/industrial buildings may well apply to the RHG scheme today. The issue may well be then, not whether it should be demolished but what it should be replaced with. Good community planning and design should occur. On the other hand, the building should stay if that's what the occupants want.

[@MajorCaliber]

One of the many flaws in RHG's design is the absurdly _narrow_ dimension of the private balconies on the "stress-free" side, facing the green space. Too slender to accommodate even the most petite bistro table, let alone a chaise lounge, they are useful only as fire escapes, or laundry drying lines. Do you blame the pompous awk-ee-tekts, or the oblivious fools at the GLC for approving it?

[@d.rowton9687]

I think its a mistake of our time to agree to demolish this historic building. Why couldnt the council agree to do what they did with Park Hill in Sheffield? (Though ideally even that shouldve just been decorated more regularly to prevent such a drastic modernisation)

[@yvonnerockcliffe-smith8636]

You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Park Hill flats are a gruesome example of arrogance. They were built for slum clearance but were little better than the slums they replaced. Sh1te Holes to the core!

[@MajorCaliber]

@@yvonnerockcliffe-smith8636 Apparently you haven't the very colorful (and fast-selling) refurbished section of Park Hill in Sheffield. Dynamite condos!

[@flashtrash7830]

Surprisingly for me they seemed quite defensive. I thought they worried about vandalism too much. Though here it is a useful reminder in 2024 that the youth of 1971, lets say at 15 - 18 years old after 53 years are today's old around 70 years of age. That cachet harks on about a less crime ridden age when they were young. (Rubbish on many levels) and it was just as they referred to in the film for many, namely the depression of people seeing things just smashed up. That post war generation was the low ebb of Britain's history.

[@kelitobrigante4338]

Very grateful for the transcription facility on this video so I did not have to suffer actually listening to Mrs S. All the Brutalism enthusiasts - I get it, it is an experience for the eye for about 5 mins, like a concrete freak show - Oh my ! Gosh! applaud and depart - but this is where real actual people live difficult lives. I do not think these people are great at all. Those buildings are depraved. Prozac should be served for someone enduring tenancy in such a building. However, the primary focus of the audacious architects here is how wasted their efforts may be when it awl gets smashed up? Give me a break. The very same pattern of "unintentional design catastrophes" can be seen in the Queen Elizabeth Towers, Glasgow. Makes me rather skeptical of the unintentional part of the grand narrative, call me paranoid. But then again, when would one expect a homeless alcoholic gentleman to design a dwelling place fit for a King? Absolutely absurd.

[@bazzle_brush]

I think we have design catasrophes all over the world, and our fair share in the UK because the flock of post-war architects of the time were totally consumed by their own utopian fantasies of how they expect people to live and interact with each other and ignored anything with any bearing for on real world and real people. I doubt they ran a single focus group or public consultation.

[@smallstudiodesign]

Their influence on schools in North America was positive, where the huge boom in new schools attributed many features to their design polemic. However, any mass development of repetitive housing ... even large scale copy-cat rubber stamp houses offer similar banality. The U.K. really was in a unique position to rehouse millions of its citizens postwar. I’m more sympathetic to these bold new untried ideas ... as failed experiments imagined with the best utopian visions, yet lacking an understanding of human beings’ behaviour & needs. ||>> Robin Hood Gardens works extremely well as a model for holiday resort developments built worldwide. The lessons we’ve learned today is to design-build more massing articulation with reconfigured & modulated façades.

[@Mike8981]

The thing is, they had little common sense, in my opinion. Lots of mistakes at Robin Hood Garden such as walk ways which were far too narrow etc. At Hunstanton all that glass nearly cooked the children and much putting right afterwards! Far too much ideology and not enough practicality. Having said that, I always cast a glance at wonderful vistas through the school as I go passed! They seem a pompous, humourless couple.

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

Pompous, humourless, and full of bullshit. How anyone let idiots like this design public buildings, heaven only knows.

[@michaelhall2138]

To be honest why aren’t architects treated like the sevice they are:- the hired help.Whenever I watch this type of grandeloquence I badly need the reviews by the consumers to be read out.The past was a strange place.

[@tranzco1173]

Because they are fancy. Architecture is a serious degree. Art/engineering/physics/math/history they need to know it all. Architects are hired. Almost everyone is hired. Weird comment.But even stranger you don't know anything about architecture, urban planning, or social democracy. Why watch this? At this point the English badly needed new affordable housing in cities, and this couple designed one of the most famous. It was a social program, so the "consumers" were lower middle class people, who got cheap housing right in the middle of a world class city. Finally, all architects are planners. All planners are not artists. Some architects are artists, since humans were constructing anything. Architects have always been respected in society, and these two were rock stars. They are "hired help" the same way a doctor could be considered hired help. Man, logical fallacy city all over in so few sentences, but keep in mind you know the name of all the Kardashians, and probably very little or nothing about Carlo Scarpa. TL/DR - You are a Philistine.

[@HH-vv2us]

what's this town without cars that she is talking about? I can not catch the name of the architect

[@thornbird6768]

Natasha Gr There isn’t one , the vision was that all housing and shopping areas would be for pedestrians only , cars and car parking would be on the boundaries of estates or large banks of garages underneath tower blocks ! Basically you should hardly see a car !! As we know that didn’t happen 🤣 not in my city anyway !

[@rethinkingchildhood]

It’s Port Grimaud, and the architect is Spoerry.

[@DDandrums]

Snappy dressers.

[@MajorCaliber]

The blanket trashing of the UK's Post-War Brutalist Estates clearly does not hold up. Simply observe The Barbican (and nearby Golden Lane Estates) for two large-scales examples that have not only "aged well", but continue to be highly desirable. Even the perpetually mis-managed Balfron Tower (and adjoining Carradale House) have finally been wrested from Council.gov bunglers, and private firms are refurbishing them to a very high standard for private sale. Robin Hood Gardens was just too flawed in both design and execution to be worth listing or preserving.

[@bettyprice6316]

Great big grey slabs of boring, miserable concrete.

[@ArtHistoryProfessor]

*"The smell of curry..."* are you fcking kidding me?!?!?! As racist as it gets!

[@Teapode]

Horrible people those Smithsons :) Modernism boxes doesnt work, so we would build same and it would work :) Thanks for film

[@JoePlatt1]

christ is her voice jarring

[@jamesneedham6265]

Its how working class people trying to survive in a public school dominated professions spoke back then like my nan, Alf Ramsey and Thatcher.

[@dv729]

why are they speaking so slow ?? like they are high or somn

[@hollydayholiday]

How can an architect know what's best for me? How being parked in some kind of chicken coop for humans can be enjoyable? These buildings are a thing of the past, they have proven to be for most the end of their dreams, in most countries, like those "cités" in France, they have been and still are, criminality nests...

[@kelitobrigante4338]

Agreed. Just as absurd as hiring a homeless alcoholic as interior designer for Kensington Palace

[@thornbird6768]

Holly Day These people came from terraced house slums with no bathrooms at the time these flats were heaven . It turned to crap when the councils stopped maintaining them and filled them up with unemployed people , immigrants and 16 year old single mothers . If you work in a major city centre and have the chance to live in one of these blocks that is due to be preserved take it .

[@MajorCaliber]

LOVE the decidedly "non-PC" comment @20:30 ... will she be forced into apologizing to unspecified African countries?... lol...

[@seehispugnosedface]

Fake teeth