On the radio this morning the subject of high-rise housing was being discussed, the hook being the new film adaptation of JG Ballard’s High-Rise.
Tower blocks are widely considered to be a disaster today; they took largely working-class populations out of often sub-standard (but potentially very nice) terraced houses into technically better housing that was in reality often isolated and unsafe.
Yet, despite this hindsight, I feel we’re making something of the same mistake again, with the current rush for skyscrapers across the city – with some 435 high-rise buildings now approved. Some of those being proposed and planned, such as the Paddington Pole and the new tower in Notting Hill Gate, lack any sympathy with the surrounding buildings. (Notting Hill Gate already has a lot of ugly post-war buildings that ruin the surrounding, beautiful Victorian architecture, but it doesn’t need more).
I concede this is an issue of personal taste, and some people want a city full of modern-looking towers; I just happen to be among the clear majority who prefer traditional buildings.
Something went wrong with architecture in the 20th century, for reasons I do not know; the problems seemed to begin in the Victorian period but after the 1930s, they became worse.
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