Overview

The housing projects built in Camden in the 1960s and 1970s when Sydney Cook was borough architect are widely regarded as the most important urban housing built in the UK in the past 100 years. Cook recruited some of the brightest talent available in London at the time and the schemes - which included Alexandra Road, Branch Hill, Fleet Road, Highgate New Town and Maiden Lane - set out a model of housing that continues to command interest and admiration from architects to this day. The Camden projects represented a new type of urban housing based on a return to streets with front doors. In place of tower blocks, the Camden architects showed how the required densities could be achieved without building high, creating a new kind of urbanism that integrated with, rather than broke from, its cultural and physical context. This book examines how Cook and his team created this new kind of housing, what it comprised, and what lessons it offers for today. New colour photographs combine with original black and white photography to give a fascinating 'then and now' portrayal not just of the buildings but also of the homes within and the people who live there.

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9781848222045

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Reviews

'a superb exploration of Camden Council's housing programme' -- Edwin Heathcote * Financial Times * `comprehensive new account of a remarkable borough and its progressive house-building programme in the 1960s and 70s under Sydney Cook.' -- Elizabeth Hopkirk * Building Design * 'probably the best housing ever built in Britain' -- Owen Hatherley

Author Information

Mark Swenarton is an architectural historian, critic and educator. He was founding editor of the international journal Construction History and co-founded and edited the monthly review Architecture Today. He was Head of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University and was the first James Stirling Chair of Architecture at Liverpool University, where he is now Emeritus Professor. His most recent book is Architecture and the Welfare State (2015).

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