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Archive on 4: Rebuilding Britain for the Baby Boomers

Rebuilding Britain for the Baby Boomers

26/11/2011

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Rebuilding Britain for the Baby Boomers

Maxwell Hutchinson on the architects who rebuilt Britain after the Second World War.

4 Extra Debut. Architect Maxwell Hutchinson analyses the rebuilding of post-war Britain through recordings and location visits. From November 2011.

Maxwell Hutchinson analyses the great push to re-build post war Britain.
In the 1990's architect and broadcaster Maxwell Hutchinson began recording interviews with the men who re-built Britain after World War 2. These idealists - then in their eighties- told how they'd returned from war to a country ravaged by the Luftwaffe, determined to design a country fit for heroes . Many were graduates of the left-leaning Architectural Association and brought their radical ideas, influenced by le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, to building social housing for slum clearance families ; hospitals for the infant NHS; schools for the children of the Butler Education act; and bold new tower blocks that would transform the city skyline. Most of them worked for local authorities and saw their profession as a public service. These "duffle-coated pip-squeaks" as they were known, included Sir Phillip Powell ,Sir Andrew Derbyshire , Ivor Smith, Peter Smithson , the father of Brutalism; Lord Esher and Jim Cadbury Brown. Many have since died. Using these interviews, plus newsreel and contemporary archive , this programme captures that idealism and reflects the later disillusionment when modernism - and architects - fell out of fashion.
2011 was the fiftieth anniversary of Parkhill Flats, Sheffield. It was seen as the embodiment of the modernist movement - streets in the sky to replace the grim terraces bulldozed after the war to give families indoor lavatories, central heating and airy balconies. At first the families couldn't believe their luck - they loved their modern new homes. But as the building began to show cracks, and the community spirit failed to translate from slum-terrace to deck access, Parkhill Flats became a by-word for all that was rotten in the state of post war architecture. It wasn't long before residents starting chucking their rubbish over the balconies, and the flats became the new slums. Peter Smithson, once blamed the residents of his much criticised development, Robin Hood Gardens (a sister project to Parkhill) for letting the building go to rack and ruin; for "painting their doors purple" and not applying "the minor arts of occupation".
Parkhill Flats - the largest listed building in Europe - is undergoing extensive renovation by the trendy developers Urban Splash; so the story of this emblematic building, which Sheffielders love and loathe in equal measure, is still a talking point. Maxwell Hutchinson goes back to Parkhill to see the renovation, talk to former residents and find out if the post-war dream of the young architects who designed this colossal building can be revived.

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