Secret history...

[dalivar]

I've just watched most of 'The secret history of our streets' on BBC2 9pm. It seems to focus on London but it was really interesting if very depressing - so many period houses 'cleared' to put up new, concrete pre-fabs and high rise flats.
Just thought I'd share!

 

[dalivar]

there are 5 more to come.

 

[Feltwell]

An interesting programme, much more about the social history of the changes than the buildings themselves. It never ceases to amaze me just exactly how much the town planners of the 50's and 60's managed to mess things up - there was absolutely no account taken of the social impact that their changes would have, splitting up long-established communities.

It would be nice to say that lessons were learnt, but the existence of the Pathfinder programme suggests otherwise.

 

[Lime]

To people like myself in the 50s and 60s the absurd claims made by planners and architects were worse than their architecture.
But just like today, huge sums of money were being made with every new-build while the existing stock was considered as uneconomic encumbrance.

"Streets in the sky" they claimed and everyone was sucked into the idea that tower blocks were the way to go.
I assume that those with the power either had no imagination whatsoever, were in it for the money or both.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I thought one of the most interesting things about the programme was that, if you watched very carefully, it didn't blame "planners and architects" for what happened - local politicians (one of whom happened to be an architect) were the ones.

 

[Feltwell]

Very true Gareth. "Town Planners" has become a bit of a euphemism, whilst I realise it's a specific role many (including myself above) use it to describe any local authority officialdom who were involved in the change process.

The politician they featured did get a bit of a rough ride - whilst he clearly still had blind faith that what they did was (mostly) right, in reality much of the change had already happened or was too far down the line to stop by the time he was elected in the early 70's. He did acknowledge how unpopular the high rise estates were though, and how his political colleagues - who mostly lived in the "big Victorian houses up the hill" - could not understand why that was so.

 

[Lime]

I thought one of the most interesting things about the programme was that, if you watched very carefully, it didn't blame "planners and architects" for what happened - local politicians (one of whom happened to be an architect) were the ones.

splitting hairs I think.
the planners and architects were the "experts" at the time, not the politicians.
The politicians didn't design the abominations that the architects purveyed.
Of course politicians were involved in the process but they would have followed the advice at the time given by planners and architects just as they do now.

 

[plasticpigeon]

I there can be no forgiveness for what Herbert Manzoni did. I wonder if he will feature in one of the episodes.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I thought one of the most interesting things about the programme was that, if you watched very carefully, it didn't blame "planners and architects" for what happened - local politicians (one of whom happened to be an architect) were the ones.

splitting hairs I think.
the planners and architects were the "experts" at the time, not the politicians.
The politicians didn't design the abominations that the architects purveyed.
Of course politicians were involved in the process but they would have followed the advice at the time given by planners and architects just as they do now.

Ha!

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I there can be no forgiveness for what Herbert Manzoni did. I wonder if he will feature in one of the episodes.

Manzoni was neither a planner nor an architect, but a road engineer. They remain the lowest form of life.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I hope the town planner/architect/local politician/road enginer/whoever destroyed one side of the medieval/tudor market sqaure in Shrewsbury and put up a 60s/70s concrete prefab monstrosity straight from the multi-storey carpark school of architecture, is very uncomfortably spinning in his grave.

He should be dug up and paraded through the streets.

 

[Lime]

I thought one of the most interesting things about the programme was that, if you watched very carefully, it didn't blame "planners and architects" for what happened - local politicians (one of whom happened to be an architect) were the ones.

splitting hairs I think.
the planners and architects were the "experts" at the time, not the politicians.
The politicians didn't design the abominations that the architects purveyed.
Of course politicians were involved in the process but they would have followed the advice at the time given by planners and architects just as they do now.

Ha!

Oh! Come on!
Politicians didn't create the designs and plans of the 60s, planners and architects did.
Politicians may have been the driving force behind them, the public face to the proposals and responsible for tearing old communities apart.
Nevertheless that doesn't exonerate planners and architects for what they produced, i.e. 1000s of ugly inapproprite buildings that prevented normal community activity.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

It was more of a "Ha!" at the idea that (local) politicians follow the advice of their expensively-employed advisors, rather than doing what they agreed to do on the golf course / down at the lodge the week before the Planning Committee met.