A 9m-high section of the Smithsons’ now-demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate will be on display at V&A East Storehouse when it opens at the Olympic Park this May
In December 2017, one of the two blocks of Robin Hood Gardens (1968-72), Alison and Peter Smithsons’ brutalist housing estate in Poplar, east London, was demolished. At the time of writing, the remaining one is being knocked down. The utopian scheme, the first of a series of planned ‘landcastles’ with which the Smithsons hoped to revive the East End, had been denied listed status and condemned in 2009, despite a rigorous campaign to save it. On the eve of demolition, the V&A, in a gesture of last resort, decided to preserve a 9m-high section of the facade, including a 5.5m-wide portion of ‘street in the sky’ as well as some interior features, including modular plywood fittings designed by the architects.
When V&A East Storehouse, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, opens in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on 31 May, visitors will encounter the fragment suspended over a large atrium. This substantial piece of architectural salvage was deemed an important example of brutalist heritage, worth preserving for future generations – a significant example of work by the Smithsons, post-war British architects who had an international reputation through their writing as much as their building. The rationale for collecting it also incorporated its history as a cause célèbre of the conservation movement, thus relevant to the museum’s interest in urbanism. Through this fragment, and the original vision (and fate) of the estate, the story of social housing in Britain from the 1950s to the present can be told.
At Storehouse, visitors will be able to walk along a section of ‘street in the sky’ and enter the lobby areas of two flats, as well as watch Do Ho Suh’s specially commissioned panoramic film, which uses time-lapse photography, 3D-scanning, drone footage and photogrammetry to reveal the layers and textures of the interiors, creating a constantly moving meditation on home, memory and displacement. Oral history recordings produced with residents will document the experiences and perspectives of the people who lived there, while a film co-produced with local creatives is intended to spark conversations around social housing and city-living today. Visitors will be challenged to consider the Smithsons’ ambitious vision for society and the role architecture plays in shaping it, and to reflect on the kind of city they want for their future.
Christopher Turner is keeper of art, architecture, photography and design at the V&A, London, and recently curated the exhibition Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence.