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.