Modernist Bethnal Green Walk - SOLD OUT
Modernist Bethnal Green Walk
Saturday 13 August 2022
Start time: 10.30 am Finish time:12.15 am
Place: Bethnal Green tube station, in front of St John on Bethnal Green.
Thaddeus Zupančič will lead a walk of post-war 1950s modernist architecture in Bethnal Green commissioned by one of the most progressive borough councils in London.
We will look at The Greenways Estate, which includes flats by both Yorke Rosenberg & Mardall (1956-9) and Denys Lasdun - his two cluster blocks, Sulkin House, and Trevelyan House (1955-8) listed at Grade II. They were significant for new ideas of urban form as well as their sculptural qualities. Those modernist blocks couldn’t be more different from the flats by Donald Hamilton, Wakeford & Partners (1949-51) for the oldest part of the estate.
Across the road is the Cranbrook Estate (1955-65) by Skinner & Bailey (and Lubetkin), which features one of Elisabeth Frink’s first public sculptures - the Blind Beggar and His Dog (1958) listed Grade II*.
We will also visit: the LCC’s Parkview Estate by De Metz & Birks (1950-3); and various other schemes by Donald Hamilton, Wakeford and Partners: Digby Estate (1968); Approach Road Estate (1951); Approach Estate (1962); Mayfield House (1962), and Patriot Square (1974-5) by John D. Hume, the borough architect of Tower Hamlets and his department. The last one is situated behind the former Bethnal Green Town Hall, by Percy Robinson & W. Alban Jones (1909-10, extended by E.C.P Monson (1937-39), and now a hotel.
Thaddeus Zupančič is a Slovenian-born writer and translator. On his Instagram account @notreallyobsessive he documents modernist council estates in London. He also manages C20’s Instagram account @c20society.
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Above: Sulkin House by Denys Lasdun, 1955-8 Photograph:Thaddeus Zupančič