Milbank Estate: brick-built municipal housing

The Millbank Estate comprises of 17 apartment blocks of 5 to 7 storeys in height. All are constructed in brick. The pollarded plane trees are just starting to unfold their leaves.

The style of architecture is rather traditional. The large chimney stacks (shown o the left) are an example of this. The overall feel of the architecture is less Mansion Block and more Dutch-revival as is clearly shown on the right with the high gable ends and the use of long dormers on the steep pitched roofs.

The central school building is lower than the housing that surrounds it. It is also built in a different colour brick. The sandy yellow colour dominates the facades. Red brick is used as accents around the windows, doors and in banding. This creates a more English gothic-revival feel for this building setting it apart from the surrounding housing blocks.

The plinths of the apartment blocks are similar to the design of the school. The large and ornate entrance surrounds in carved stone painted white are very eye-catching. Ornament also stretches further up as small turrets on the corners embellish the architecture as a way of counteracting sameness between the blocks.

The blocks either side of the Millbank Gardens are arranged in a parallel manner. These blocks clearly show of the architecture to its best advantage, especially now that the trees are not obscuring most of the facades.

The stone surround of the entrances are rather shapely neo-baroque additions. In similar style some of the blocks were designed with high gable ends resembling Dutch Gables. Here an example that combines the Spout and Bell Gable. The protruding sections flanking a balcony are a lovely device to add interest to this large building facade.

Some of the blocks resemble warehouses from Amsterdam with the long facades and the white top section just below the roof.

Millbank Estate: turn of the century social housing

On a site not far from where once a mill has stood on the Thames lies the area known as Millbank. Here the first modern prison in London, Millbank Penitentiary would be opened in 1816. The marshy site in Pimlico was purchased on behalf of the Crown by Jeremy Bentham to build the first example of the Panopticon he had devised. This National Penitentiary was eventually constructed after plans by William Williams, redesigned by Thomas Hardwick and built by John Harvey and his successor Robert Smirke as the site proved difficult for the erection of such a massive construction. It had separate cells for 860 prisoners and served as a holding facility for prisoners before transport to Australia. The prison was costly to run and in time it was decided to make the Model Prison Pentonville into the National Penitentiary and abandon the Millbank facility.

In 1885 the site is thus earmarked for development and demolition of the fortress-like prison complex began. The principle buildings erected in its stead, were the National Gallery of British Art, now rebranded Tate Britain (built 1893-1897) and the Royal Army Medical School (1905-1907) now in use by the Chelsea College of Art & Design. Following on from the Boundary Estate in Shoreditch the London County Council (LCC) decides to develop the site for a large-scale, inner-city housing complex for the working classes. In those days the wharfs and warehouses on the Thames lay close by, so the provision of housing for harbour workers made sense. In 1896 a street plan is approved. Construction starts in 1897 and ends in 1902. For the construction bricks from the demolished prison were used.

The octagonal outline of the prison complex can still be recognised in the street plan of this part of Pimlico. Tate Britain (1) takes pride of place on the river bank. Behind it the LCC Millbank Estate (2) and the Millbank Gardens (3). The CCAD occupies the former medical school (4).

The apartment blocks were designed by R. Minton Taylor in a style in-between the Mansion Block and Dutch-revival brick architecture. The result is a convincing ensemble of symmetrically arranged, asymmetrically detailed blocks on a plinth and with stone door surrounds. The estate comprises of 17 buildings, each named after a distinguished painter. The streets were planted with London Plane trees. Between the blocks communal gardens, laid to lawn, were included. At the centre a winged building with a school for boys and a school for girls was included in the scheme. Whilst the housing blocks were being constructed the Millbank Gardens were laid out as a public greens space for the residents. It is best described as a Public Garden in the tradition of the German People's Park. The Millbank Estate can be seen as an example of the German tradition of social housing in so-called Reform-Mietskasernen, predating the Gartenhof.

The whole complex, including the public garden, is now Grade II listed.

Ossulston Estate, Viennese flair in Somers Town

Most planned estates from the 1920s do not include amenities. Ossulston Estate is the exception to the rule with a tavern included in the scheme in reflection of similar continental schemes. These especial functions are included in the lowest sections of the Super Blocks and always frame an entrance to an inner courtyard.

The white render on the facades is reminiscent of the Carl Seitz Hof and modernist architecture. Here structured render is applied to enliven the visual perception of the block. In the axis of the north court a large gate gives access to the street beyond. The facade is also symmetrical. The new planting is rather sparse compared to Viennese examples.

The largest part of the estate is composed of 6 storey blocks of flats that link together around courtyards. The balconies look out over the adjoining courtyard, that in this case is completely paved. The horizontal lines of the architecture reduce the visual height of the buildings.

Large gates give access to the complex. Each perforation of the block is emphasised in the architecture and placed in a central axial position within the spatial composition and facade. The facades have a ground floor in natural stone thus breaking the visual height of the building. The facade is composed of repeated symmetrical groupings of elements (i.e. windows, balconies and chimneys).

The same compositional devices are employed on the facades facing inner courtyards. The whole complex is very reminiscent of the Carl Seitz Hof (formerly known as Garden City Floridsdorf).

The windows have a rectangular shape with a strong vertical aspect, but they are arranged in horizontal ribbons on the facade. Widow bays break the surface of the facade and segment the facade. The shops that were part of the original scheme still function. Again this special function sits besides an entrance to an inner courtyard.

By playing with the height of the various sections of the Super Block, Topham Forrest creates visual interest and reduces the visual impact of what would otherwise have been a massive structure. It also provides him with opportunities to emphasize certain parts of the building and thus exaggerate the gateways to the inner courtyards.

Ossulston Estate, a rare example of pioneering architecture in Camden

As the endless repetition of semidetached housing in various vernacular styles or pastiche architecture along similar after similar street in suburban London clearly shows, the basically conservative nature of middle-class Brits has left little room for experiment or anything more than conscious variation on a well-defined theme. The English disdain for multi-storey living has been well-documented. This is in part the reason for continental European ideas not being taking up in Britain prior to the 1950s. So any complex inspired by Viennese examples of compact modernist social housing generated much excitement and it still does!

Somers Town was developed in the 19th century from market gardens into a northern extension of the sprawling London Metropolis by the owner of the landholding Charles Cocks, Baron Somers of Evesham. The private developers chose a grid layout of long streets. Somers Town was , however, to change forever with the arrival of the railways as it became sandwiched between Euston Station (1838) in the west and St Pancras Station (1868) and King's Cross Station (1852) in the east. St Pancras Old Church still stands in isolation along the train tracks behind the eponymous station buildings.

The massive wave of building after WW1 took place mostly along the lines of garden suburb developments. The so-called cottage estates planned and designed by the London County Council are an example of this. In Britain even the Labour Movement believed that the working classed were best served with houses with gardens. This is in sharp contrast to the forward-thinking ideals of continental socialists who advocated modern and airy living with shared facilities and communal gardens. Thus in countries like Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria and Finland cost effective ways of providing low-rent accommodation were found in building small en large housing complexes with communal amenities, especially after 1918. There are however some experiments towards modern living for the masses from about 1900.

How bold a step was it therefore when George Topham Forrest was asked to design a new housing estate for the displaced residents of the former inner-city slums that were cleared by the LCC, that he would propose a multi-storey mixed-use redevelopment of the 2.2 hectare site in Somers Town. The architect concluded that the small site required building upwards of the usual 5 storeys. In his initial plans (1925) he envisaged a functional plinth with ground-floor shops and first-floor offices with 2 floors of spacious middle-class apartments above that and another 7 floors of smaller labourers apartments above them.  He had no socialist ideals on mixing social classes with his scheme, but looked at the site with great practicality. His proposals were turned down by the LCC, as they would require the incorporation of lifts.

After a visit to Vienna, Topham Forrest amended his plans. In 1927 he presented his new designs for the Ossulston Estate clearly inspired by Viennese examples such as the Carl Seitz Hof and the Karl Marx Hof. His crucial modification was to create a staggered roofline by alternating sections of 3 storeys with sections of 6 storeys and towers of 9 storeys. The way he included shops on one side always near the entrances to the inner court yards reflects the Carl Seitz Hof (or Garden City Floridsdorf as it was known then). By snaking the apartments in between communal courtyard he gave the residents the greatest possible supply of air and light. Each apartment also had a small balcony overlooking one of the courtyards. In German, Dutch and Austrian examples of such Super Blocks the courtyards are laid to grass or planted with flowers and trees. The Ossulston estate would provide accommodation for some 3050 people in 492 flats.

The Super Block Estate sits between Euston Station (1) and The British Library (5) in Somers Town that was changed beyond recognition by the railways, as this picture makes clear. The old roads have been projected over the large current station buildings of St Pancras (2), King's Cross (3), St Pancras International (6) and the King's Cross expansion (7). The Town Hall of Camden (4) was built opposite Euston Square, once a lovely garden square.The Ossulston Estate (A) follows the direction of the old grid. St Pancras Old Church (B) stand at some distance along the now covered Fleet river (C). The Octagon (D) and part of St James Graveyard (now St James' Gardens -E) have also disappeared.

The estate has been extensively restored with some greenery added to the barren paved courtyards. This, however, should ideally be expanded to better the visual appeal and increase the well-being of residents. The complex remains a rare example of a multi-storey residential development from the 1920s in an expressive modern style of architecture.