Trellick Tower in Pop Video History

Here’s six videos that feature perhaps my favourite building, the iconic Trellick Tower in Ladbroke Grove, and one which is named after it, but obviously wasn’t filmed there.  Judging from the number of times he has featured Trellick it would appear that Damon Albarn is just as enthused by the controversial tower as I am.  At the end, there’s also a bonus cameo from a film classic.

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

Judging by this trailer, this documentary on St. Louis’ infamous Pruitt-Igoe Housing Estate will be excellent:

(via Entschwindet und Vergeht / “The Pruitt-Igoe Myth” website)

Et Tu Brutalism?

I am currently reading Owen Hatherley’s ‘A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain‘ and I’m angry. I’m not angry at the book, quite the contrary – it is a scathing yet humorous attack on the architectural and urban planning legacy of New Labour that has sullied our inner cities by filling them full of areas rebranded as “quarters”, ubiquitous property hoardings containing words such as “vibrant” and “opportunity”, and square kilometre after square kilometre of empty office space and uninhabited flats.

I am angry at the destruction of social housing in order to artificially inflate property prices, and the transformation of entire working-class neighbourhoods into “desirable modern living” for the professional classes.  I am angry that when it came to its housing strategy, New Labour abandoned its principles in favour of a neoliberal approach, embracing the free market and the Private Finance Initiative, exactly as it did in other spheres of government policy.  But most of all, I am angry at the architecture.