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HomeArchitectureThe Nice British Housing Catastrophe: Revisiting a Basic Documentary by Adam Curtis

The Nice British Housing Catastrophe: Revisiting a Basic Documentary by Adam Curtis

The Nice British Housing Catastrophe: Revisiting a Basic Documentary by Adam Curtis

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Architizer’s new image-heavy each day publication, The Plug, is straightforward on the eyes, giving readers a fast jolt of inspiration to supercharge their days. Plug in to the newest design discussions by subscribing. 

Adam Curtis’s latest movies are marked by a unprecedented, some would possibly say reckless stage of ambition. In Hypernormalization (2016) and Can’t Get You Out of My Head (2021), Curtis makes an attempt to inform a historical past of the current, giving narrative kind to these invisible forces — finance, know-how, tradition — that busily make and unmake our world from behind the scenes, pursuing ends of their very own that, critically for Curtis, exceed the intentions of the human beings who purport to wield them. “A faux bubble of certainty… has imprisoned us within the West,” Curtis remarks in Hypernormalization in his trademark droll voiceover, “and is now stopping us from understanding what is de facto happening on this planet exterior.” Curtis’s movies attempt to pop this bubble, they usually do it stylishly, with impressionistic montages backed by Aphex Twin and Burial. 

Adam Curtis has mentioned he’s a journalist, not an artist, however that is — I’m sorry, Adam — unfaithful. The tales he’s attempting to inform at present are tales that can not be contained by the linear, goal strategies of journalism. For this reason he turns so typically to the instruments of the avant garde: montage, juxtaposition, irony and rupture. This isn’t a criticism. James Joyce couldn’t seize his time with the instruments of linear narrative both, which is why he turned to different strategies.

Within the Nineteen Eighties, nonetheless, Adam Curtis may have correctly been known as a journalistic filmmaker, not an experimental one. And he was good at that too. On YouTube, one can watch one in every of his earliest efforts at no cost. 

The Nice British Housing Catastrophe is an “Inquiry” movie produced by the BBC. It doesn’t characteristic Curtis’s trademark narration — David Jones does the honors right here — nor his surreal use of fashionable music, however his masterful enhancing remains to be on view, as Curtis tells a posh story by an accumulation of interviews and information clips. Additionally obvious on this movie is Curtis’s ire towards the mystifying facet of forms, the way in which energy disguises itself behind veils of false complexity in order that it could possibly perform at the hours of darkness. One may name this the Kafkaesque aspect of Curtis’s social criticism. 

The Nice British Housing Catastrophe just isn’t solely needed viewing for followers of Curtis’s filmmaking, but in addition for anybody with an curiosity within the historical past of backed housing. On the very starting of the movie, the narrator notes that the documentary is not going to critique the social issues that emerged within the excessive rise council homes constructed within the Sixties — a well-recognized story for UK viewers — however quite the scandal of their shoddy building. This comparatively slim focus would possibly shock viewers aware of the encyclopedic scope of Curtis’s later movies, however it’s actually a power of this movie, because it permits Curtis to show his consideration squarely to the areas of politics and building, not design or sociology. 

What emerges is a narrative about incentives. Whereas the dream of extensively out there social housing was noble, the inducement construction within the Sixties inspired low-cost building with little oversight, resulting in junky buildings that ended up discrediting the notion of council homes within the minds of thousands and thousands of Britons. The stigma connected itself to Brutalist design too, as this misunderstood, frankly utopian model of constructing got here to be related to the grifters who accepted authorities cash however did not ship useful housing. 

Balconies of Trellick Tower, London’s most well-known council tower. Designed by Ernst Goldfinger and erected in 1972, Trellick Tower is taken into account a landmark of the Brutalist model. It has by no means, nonetheless, been as fashionable amongst native residents as amongst architects. Photograph by Suzanne Waters by way of Wikimedia Commons.

The villains on this documentary are usually not architects however contractors who satisfied native councils to permit them to manage each facet of the development course of, from selecting architects to hiring labor to conducting oversight. Given this unprecedented stage of management, the contractors’ solely incentive was to construct as cheaply and shortly as doable. Fundamental points had been ignored, resembling securing the prefabricated concrete panels that comprised the towers with the suitable bolts and ties. Curtis interviews quite a few building staff who attest to the truth that when bolts and ties didn’t match instantly, they merely uncared for to safe them, assuming pressure can be sufficient to maintain the panels in place. On website, the course they got was to construct shortly, not rigorously. 

A lot of issues emerged because of the improperly secured panels, together with damp entering into the constructing, which prompted the concrete to erode and in some instances even slough off in chunks, endangering pedestrians beneath. Inside only a few a long time of their building, hundreds of council towers constructed within the Sixties had been demolished. The touted dream of the Labour authorities to construct 500,000 homes that decade ended up as a bust. The one actual winners had been profiteering contractors.

 The problems introduced up on this documentary reached a tragic conclusion a long time after its launch, in 2017, when Grenfell Tower in West London caught fireplace, killing 72 individuals. Inquiries revealed that the fireplace was brought on by the extremely flammable aluminum cladding that was added to the concrete tower to forestall damp from getting in and corroding the metal helps — an addition that was solely needed because of flaws within the authentic building.

Grenfell Tower because it appeared in 2009. Photograph by Robin Soanes by way of Wikimedia Commons. 

The dangers that went in to repairing these deeply flawed towers are famous within the latter half of the documentary. In a hauntingly prescient second, a member of the Affiliation of Metropolitan Authorities explains that “The one manner that you would be able to restore the current industrialized techniques is by means of different untried and untested remedial works and so we’re really discovering that there are actually really techniques of restore coming in to restore the systems-built dwellings within the first place. And we have already got proof of a few of these restore techniques failing as a result of they’ve been inadequately researched and evaluated.” We all know now that the dangers had been huge.

In each the UK and the US, there’s a urgent want for public housing at present, as housing prices proceed to skyrocket, particularly in city facilities. These initiatives have to be undertaken with care. Extraordinary individuals need to reside in housing that’s useful, stunning and protected. This in actual fact was the unique dream of Brutalist architects just like the Smithsons. Whereas many will blame poor design as the rationale this dream didn’t come to fruition, Curtis’s documentary exposes one other offender, one that’s all too acquainted: greed.

Architizer’s new image-heavy each day publication, The Plug, is straightforward on the eyes, giving readers a fast jolt of inspiration to supercharge their days. Plug in to the newest design discussions by subscribing. 

Cowl picture: “Brutalist Constructing Trying Up” by Banalities by way of Wikimedia Commons

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