Page Street, London

Checkmate

A few years ago I was involved in a campaign to provide more affordable housing in the small Cotswold town where I live. Some people argued that they didn't want new buildings cluttering up the town, and I would say that social housing didn't have to be ugly. It could be well designed and a visual asset to a place. It could be well built in local stone in the Cotswolds, whereas in London, maybe brick or stucco might be more appropriate materials. Get a good architect to do the designs and you'd really enhace the neighbourhood. Well, I know it doesn't always work out like that, but it's good to aim high.

I was reminded of these discussions the other day when I was on my way to Tate Britain. I’d often admired and boggled at these flats in Page Street and neighbouring Vincent Street before finding out their history. Interestingly, they're an example of getting a successful architect to design social housing using, as it happens, those quintessentially London materials, brick and stucco. Of course there are plenty of brick and stucco buildings around, some as vibrantly patterned as streaky bacon, some more restrained. But none of them are quite like this. The chequerboard-patterned blocks were designed by Edwin Lutyens no less, and built in 1929–30. Lutyens was the great master of country houses, banks, and other grand buildings, and, famously, did the design for the Cenotaph in Whitehall. These flats were his only large-scale social housing scheme, and were done for the Westminster City Council. The blocks, by the way, are divided by little Classical pavilions containing shops and entrance halls that are much more in the expected Lutyens style. But what catches the eye are these expanses of brick and stucco, traditional materials put to unprecedented use. On the eve of the 1930s, the Edwardian master had not lost his eccentric touch.