Robin Hood Gardens: Requiem For A Dream

”After decades of controversy, Alison and Peter Smithson’s monumental housing estate in Poplar, East London, is finally being emptied of tenants in preparation for its demolition. The blocks will eventually be replaced by a quiver of anodyne towers designed by AEDAS. The AR’s History Editor Tom Wilkinson takes a final look at this landmark of Brutalism, tracing the context of its creation, the vagaries of its reputation, and exploring the unloved, but not unlovely spaces around it, concluding that Robin Hood Gardens is a reminder of architecture’s potential in an age of austerity.” The Architectural Review