The Wall Street Journal - 08.11.2019

M2| Friday, November 8, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

I

n the 1960s, Balfron Tower

was built in the Poplar

neighborhood in the East

End of London to house

the city’s poor. Today, the

building is being repurposed as

high-end housing for profession-

als. The project will take three

years and cost a reported £40

million ($51.7 million). This fall,

buyers were given their first

glimpse of how the Brutalist

landmark is being brought into

the 21st century.

Prices start at £365,000

($472,054) for a 450-square-foot,

one-bedroom home. The most ex-

pensive, three-bedroom apart-

ments are priced at about

£800,000 ($1.03 million). Baerbel

Schuett, development director at

Londonewcastle, the firm doing

the renovation, believes the

homes will appeal to buyers with

a particular love of Mid-Century

architecture.

“It is not just a normal new

build,” she said.

Balfron Tower was designed by

the Hungarian architect Ernő

Goldfinger, and was completed in

1967.Itfeaturesrowsof“streets

in the sky”—open walkways link-

ing a narrow elevator tower to

the main part of the building.

Laura Chan lived at Balfron for

nine months during 2010. As a

former architecture student who

had written her thesis on Brutal-

ist architecture, she was thrilled

to be living in a real-life modern-

ist icon with views over London.

Ms. Chen, 32, who now works

as a project manager for a design

consultancy, particularly liked

don-based architects and “cre-

atives” than to buyers from China

and the Far East—currently Lon-

don’s most active overseas inves-

tors—looking for a basic rental

apartment. “But someone looking

to really experience London will

buy here,” she said.

The area around Balfron, Pop-

lar, was formerly a Victorian slum,

and was largely rebuilt with hous-

ing projects after World War II. It

is still one of the most deprived

parts of London despite its loca-

tion a mile from Canary Wharf,

the city’s thriving business and fi-

nancial district. Regeneration of

the area has started, and there is

a construction pipeline of around

3,000 new apartments. But, with

few local amenities, those who do

buy at Balfron Tower will need

both a love of Brutalist design

and a pioneering spirit.

BYRUTHBLOOMFIELD

LIVING HISTORY

From Rundown to Upscale

A London public housing project, designed by an architect whose name was

co-opted by Ian Fleming for a legendary Bond villain, gets a major reboot

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: JACK TAYLOR/GETTY IMAGES; RIBA COLLECTIONS; JAKE CURTIS (2)

leading conservation watchdog,

the developers have preserved

examples of each type of apart-

ment, while modernizing the rest

with an open-plan layout.

The interiors have been de-

signed by two different firms:

Studio Egret West, an architec-

tural practice with a record of re-

vamping Brutalist buildings, and

Ab Rogers Design, a firm known

for its use of bold primary colors.

Mr. Rogers thinks Balfron Tower

is “one of the pillars of modern-

ism.

“We are playing with Goldfin-

ger’s ghost, making the building

relevant for today,” he said.

Mr. Rogers took down walls—

when it was built, fire regulations

demanded separate kitchens and

living rooms—and used much

larger panes of glass in the floor-

to-ceiling windows than those

available in the 1960s. He also in-

stalled more storage.

Both teams of designers have

used an era-appropriate palette

of materials in the apartments.

Mr. Rogers chose gray linoleum

floors while Brian Mallon, associ-

ate director of Studio Egret West,

opted for retro-style cork floor-

ing in the bedrooms, terrazzo

tiles in the kitchen and bathroom,

and plywood doors on the upper

kitchen cupboards.

Mr. Rogers’ trademark is bright

colors, but, because the apart-

ments are compact, he chose “a

super pure and clean” design. This

means white walls, gray floors

and kitchen cabinet doors, and a

lighter-gray, stone-composite

work top—although he couldn't

resist a bright red bathroom ceil-

ing “to give you something to look

when you are lying in the bath.”

One thing that nobody wanted

to change was Goldfinger’s inno-

vative approach to the building’s

public spaces. The color-coded

corridors which Ms. Chen ad-

mired will be renovated with new

tiles from the same manufacturer.

In the elevator tower, there are

also communal rooms for resi-

dents. Goldfinger provided a li-

brary, music room, and hobby

room, and these ideas will be re-

vived. But his laundry room is no

longer necessary and instead res-

idents will get a yoga room and

gym, a screening room and a din-

ing room with its own kitchen

and roof terrace. Residents

will be able to book this

space out for parties

and events.

As well as reno-

vating Balfron,

Londonewcastle

will be upgrading

the grassed areas

around the building,

adding new planting

and seating, and a

ground-floor cafe. But it will

not mess with one of Goldfinger’s

most famous ideas for Balfron

Tower, the uniquely Brutalist

children’s playground which

comes complete with a concrete

slide.

Ms. Schuett accepts that the

project will appeal more to Lon-

some of Goldfinger’s finishing

touches, like the tiled communal

hallways, with a different color

used for each level, and the pri-

vate balconies with their concrete

planters.

The memories aren’t all good.

Like much of London’s post-

war social housing, Bal-

fron Tower suffered

from neglect and

lack of maintenance.

“The flats were

quite damp, and

cockroaches lived

behind the concrete

panels in the kitchen

and bathroom and ev-

ery so often they would

come out,” she said. “If both

the elevators broke down at the

same time, which they sometimes

did, it meant walking up 21 flights

of stairs.”

In his original design, Mr.

Goldfinger devised six different

apartment layouts. At the request

of Historic England, Britain’s

Balfron Tower, top, with its “streets in the sky,” which divide elevators from

apartments. One of the newly refurbished apartments, above, and the view

from an apartment balcony, with its original concrete planter, below.

$472,000

starting price of a 450-

sq.-ft. one-bedroom

apartment at

Balfron Tower

Ernő Goldfinger was born in

Budapest, Hungary, in 1902. He

studied architecture in Paris

and was inspired by the work

of modernists like Mies van

der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Af-

ter moving to Britain, he be-

gan designing private homes,

moving on to public housing

after WWII.

Mr. Goldfinger designed

some of London’s first sky-

scrapers, including Balfron

Tower, which was among Eu-

rope’s tallest buildings in the

late 1960s.

When the novelist Ian

Fleming named one of his

most memorable villains Gold-

finger, the architect was livid—

although it is unclear whether

Mr. Fleming personally disliked

Mr. Goldfinger or simply liked

his name.

Mr. Goldfinger began legal

proceedings against Mr. Flem-

ing’s publisher. Mr. Fleming

then threatened to change the

character’s name to Goldprick.

The publisher finally agreed to

pay Mr. Goldfinger’s legal costs

and clarify in ads and future

editions that the book’s char-

acters were fictitious.

Mr. Goldfinger also inspired

J.G Ballard’s 1975 novel “High-

Rise,” about residents of a

building modeled on Balfron

Tower driven to violence. Its

antagonist was the architect,

Antony Royal, who lived in a

penthouse atop the building.

Mr. Goldfinger died in 1987,

aged 85.

THE ARCHITECT WHO

INSPIRED AUTHORS

THE

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