Trellick of the south?
My Brixton friend tells me that this local building is becoming the next Trellick Tower. You know, a place that on one side people are writing it off as a hole, while on the other it’s being hailed an architectural icon.
It’s got presence, whatever you decide. I’ve been aware of it since moving to London 13 years ago, but have only just found out a handful of facts about it:
It’s one of six housing estates built in the 1980’s, in response to Brixton’s bomb damage from WWII.
It’s called Southwyk House and is part of the larger Somerleyton estate, but is also known locally as the Barrier Block.
It has been described as neobrutalist-inspired architecture.
A lot of people think it’s actually Brixton prison.
It was designed by a young female Polish architect (whose name I’ve failed to find) who, according to legend, killed herself after it was built the wrong way around.
This story has been rubbished. The estate was part of a redevelopment plan drawn up in 1968 by the GLC, which also included a six lane motorway slicing through Brixton, past this site. The building’s facade – tiny windows, zig-zag design – was intended to bounce traffic noise back to the ground and though the road project was abandoned, the block was already under construction.
The block has 176 properties, 173 of which are served by concierge, and I’ve been reading about good sized rooms and views from the top of it – more easily imagined when you see the other side of it (above). I’ve also been reading about drugs crime, dilapidation, etc etc, also depressingly easy to assume.
Finally, apparently Damien Hurst lived here way back. Does anyone know if that one is actually true?
I don’t know about Hurst but I did hear that it played a part in the riots last year: apparently the way it’s built made it almost like a fort, easy to defend.
Not sure about Damien Hirst , I know Jarvis Cocker used to live in a tower block in Camberwell!
I live just up the road from it. Its the only place in Brixton that i feel genuinely nervous walking past. Probably because i find the building gives off a kind of brooding, menacing aura. Very interesting to find out about the motorway plans, as that explains the structural choices. I agree with Jo’s comment about it being fort like. I think that’s part of the problem for me. I feel like a bit of a miserable old git admitting to it but i really wish they’d rip it down – i feel like its presence depresses the whole area!
Will be using that Jarvis fact in future, you can be sure. Yes, it is like a fort and Selina I understand why you’d feel like that, it is so domineering.
Well I’ve lived next to it since 1984 and it was notorious then for muggings, burglary and worse for many many years, like alot of big estate buildings I guess (North Peckham too), but the couple of flats I’ve been in were really nice, really light, lots of south facing windows – not what you see from the road. It’s interesting how buildings can get easier on the eye and inspire fondness when they were hated at first. Oh and at the risk of sounding name-droppy I think Damien H did live there a short while because I used to bump into him just outside here, I knew him to chat to superficially from college – this feels like a very long time ago.
Thanks Madeleine and good to hear a view from the inside as it were. I did read a lot about people taking drugs under one remaining tree (this one description seems to have been copied and pasted around the web) and also noticed that there’s some annoyance about an illegal billboard, which has been erected outside so there’s a lot of care about the building as well as annoyance over it.