Unexpectedly, a crime-ridden East London housing development that has since been demolished serves as the centerpiece of an exhibit at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
V&A representatives, however, have revealed that a three-story portion of Poplar’s Robin Hood Gardens estate from the 1970s will play a significant role in their new East Storehouse venue.
A portion of the brutalist estate that the museum in South Kensington purchased in 2017 before it was demolished has been polished by conservators for 1,000 hours.
It was “one of the most complex object conservation and installation undertakings we have ever undertaken,” according to Tim Reeve, chief operational officer of the V&A.
After an unsuccessful battle to salvage the decaying concrete estate by architects like Lord Richard Rogers and Lord Norman Foster, it was demolished.
According to The Times, the 15th-century ceiling of the Torrijos Palace in Spain will now be directly across from the section that was rescued, which consists of two maisonette flats.
According to the Daily Telegraph, the 10-ton façade will be featured in a new exhibition in Stratford addressing social housing, eviction, and regeneration in London.
On the site of the London 2012 Olympic Games, two new venues, the V&A East Storehouse and the V&A East, are scheduled to open in 2014 and 2025, respectively.
An interior from one of the maisonettes as well as a portion of one of the controversial estate’s “streets in the clouds” will also be on display at East Storehouse.
Visitors will hear about the estate’s struggles with crime despite its original goal of improving homes for traditional East End neighborhoods.
In addition, the building was vandalized, and English Heritage declared at the time of its removal that it “fails as a place for human beings to live.”
However, the estate, which was created by Peter and Alison Smithson and was constructed in 1972, is still regarded as a significant piece of brutalist architecture.
According to Mr. Reeve, “We will put the experience of those who have lived in and around Robin Hood Gardens front and center” in the display that will surround it.
He claimed he wanted to “start fresh debates” regarding the effects of gentrification, regeneration, and social housing as well as what they represent for the future of our cities.
V&A officials did not disclose the price at the time of acquisition in 2017, but they did admit that they contributed to the costs of the object’s extraction.
The part includes two maisonette flats from the seventh level of the estate, complete with doors, kitchen equipment, wardrobes, paneling, and skirting boards.
The Government announced in 2008 that it had chosen not to list the block and that more than 1,500 new dwellings will be built on the site to take the place of the 252 apartments.
Fans of the building compared Robin Hood Gardens to Bath’s Royal Crescent, a Georgian terrace, but set in the 20th century.
The architects of the 1972 structure, which was the subject of a 1980s television program, were devotees of French modernist architect Le Corbusier.
However, 80 percent of the 600 tenants of the building favored plans to demolish the structure and erect new residences, and English Heritage recommended that the structure not be listed.
The V&A also unveiled portions of its 2023 schedule this week, including the first significant Donatello exhibition in the UK.