“I miss you Balfron Tower so badly…”
Crossing the threshold of a home transports you with a powerful immediacy from public to private space. In that moment everything changes.
Stepping, then, into the shell of a home of someone I had never met had an unsettling quality. It seemed to heighten my senses and intensify my powers of observation. I felt the carpet under my feet, heard the far away roar of traffic, and smelt the smells of a home now emptied of life. If these walls spoke, what would they whisper? What human joys have they witnessed and what secret sorrows have they buried?
Only small clues remained to begin the conversation with Flat 130. Keys left hanging on a nail in the kitchen, some faded magazine clippings of sublime natural landscapes taped above a door frame, and a child's stickers on the bathroom mirror. Fragments of the normality of everyday life, easily overlooked, but in this context the potent symbols of lives lived and now past.
"I miss you Balfron Tower so badly, goodbye Balfron Tower, love you Balfron Tower", scribbled on a bedroom wall in a child's hand. I will never know who undertook that small but poignant act of remembrance, but it pointed to the humanity of ‘Brutalist’ Balfron, a container of so much human life that has not only been a place to live, but a home to hundreds.
Sophia Schorr-Kon, www.sophiaschorr-kon.com
Darkness and Light
Put simply, shooting Balfron Tower awakened me to the importance of Brutalist architecture, the history of utopian housing communities, and the need, now, to re-capture such a vision.
Balfron visually dominates its landscape, with its sculptural service tower and walkways – a proud, grey, rough texture – and perfectly scattered slit windows. Its almost militaristic silhouette feels immediately threatening. But after a chance encounter with a resident of over 30 years, it became clear to me that this was not just an object to deride or fetishize. This was a home; a community.
Inside the re-created Flat 130, the fixtures, fittings and furniture were restored and positioned by Tilly Hemingway’s team as they might have been in 1968. A smoldering pipe sat on a desk as though the imagined resident had just popped out to fetch the milk. The views across East London, different now, but no less stunning.
Above all else, though, was the sense of an effervescent natural light.
How revolutionary the concept of moving people from dark, squalid conditions up into bright, spacious living quarters must have been. And I found myself questioning whether what we build now will leave such a lasting impact on communities and architecture. If the National Trust continues to concern itself with that debate and similar issues of urban wellbeing, using history as a tool, it will be a good thing.
Edward Haynes, www.edwardhaynes.co.uk
Crossing the threshold of a home transports you with a powerful immediacy from public to private space. In that moment everything changes.
Stepping, then, into the shell of a home of someone I had never met had an unsettling quality. It seemed to heighten my senses and intensify my powers of observation. I felt the carpet under my feet, heard the far away roar of traffic, and smelt the smells of a home now emptied of life. If these walls spoke, what would they whisper? What human joys have they witnessed and what secret sorrows have they buried?
Only small clues remained to begin the conversation with Flat 130. Keys left hanging on a nail in the kitchen, some faded magazine clippings of sublime natural landscapes taped above a door frame, and a child's stickers on the bathroom mirror. Fragments of the normality of everyday life, easily overlooked, but in this context the potent symbols of lives lived and now past.
"I miss you Balfron Tower so badly, goodbye Balfron Tower, love you Balfron Tower", scribbled on a bedroom wall in a child's hand. I will never know who undertook that small but poignant act of remembrance, but it pointed to the humanity of ‘Brutalist’ Balfron, a container of so much human life that has not only been a place to live, but a home to hundreds.
Sophia Schorr-Kon, www.sophiaschorr-kon.com
Darkness and Light
Put simply, shooting Balfron Tower awakened me to the importance of Brutalist architecture, the history of utopian housing communities, and the need, now, to re-capture such a vision.
Balfron visually dominates its landscape, with its sculptural service tower and walkways – a proud, grey, rough texture – and perfectly scattered slit windows. Its almost militaristic silhouette feels immediately threatening. But after a chance encounter with a resident of over 30 years, it became clear to me that this was not just an object to deride or fetishize. This was a home; a community.
Inside the re-created Flat 130, the fixtures, fittings and furniture were restored and positioned by Tilly Hemingway’s team as they might have been in 1968. A smoldering pipe sat on a desk as though the imagined resident had just popped out to fetch the milk. The views across East London, different now, but no less stunning.
Above all else, though, was the sense of an effervescent natural light.
How revolutionary the concept of moving people from dark, squalid conditions up into bright, spacious living quarters must have been. And I found myself questioning whether what we build now will leave such a lasting impact on communities and architecture. If the National Trust continues to concern itself with that debate and similar issues of urban wellbeing, using history as a tool, it will be a good thing.
Edward Haynes, www.edwardhaynes.co.uk
