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Instances of a changed society

The post war council estate in time

Ian Waites: In May 1964, my family moved into this two-bedroomed council house on the Middlefield Lane estate in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. It was brand new, and had a very 'Contemporary' turquoise front door with a kind of parabolic concrete canopy over it. It had Formica kitchen 'tops', a TV aerial socket, and a 'picture-window’. The estate was one product of local and central government policy to provide new housing for working-class families, and it was characterized by Modernist ideas in architecture and planning. As such, it was very much for the moment, rather than for posterity. Posterity however has not been kind to this estate, which has been subject to a process of ‘planned neglect’, driven by strident critiques of Modernism, and by waning state policy and social support. The purpose of this blog is to help reverse that situation. It will chronicle my research and thinking on the history of this very provincial piece of post war planning and architecture, and on the English post war council estate in general. In 1979, nearly half the British population lived in local authority housing. To me, it was a good world to live in. I belong to it. So do you.

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Monday Monday

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You're my world

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The Future Crayon

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Taking the long view

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The First of May

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Cut-throughs on the estate. Where was I going? Where had I been? What had I been doing? Who was I with?

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Memory Work

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The Unmaking and Re-Making of a 1960s English Council Estate

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I have dreams of summer skies

February 20, 2013

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The Phosco P107

February 20, 2013

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The low spark of 'well-heeled utopians'

January 31, 2013

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Astroturfing

January 25, 2013

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The people known as overspill

December 22, 2012

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Reading, looking, and listening

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Conserving the Twentieth Century
Flickr: Gainsborough Lincolnshire
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Municipal Dreams
Particulations
Poly-Technic
Save Cressingham Gardens
the modernist society
Unofficial Histories
Urban Trawl

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