Modernism revisited: thirty-three years on, Patrick Hodgkinson and Levitt Bernstein apply essential finishing touches to the Brunswick Centre.

Theo Crosby, writing in the October 1972 edition of The Architectural Review, compared Patrick Hodgkinson's Foundling Estate development unfavourably with the slice of Georgian Bloomsbury that it had replaced. Being less intimate than the streets that surrounded it, Hubert de Cronin Hastings concurred by stating that the Brunswick would lend itself less favourably to change of use, and that instead of integrating with the environment the imposing structure actively opposed it. Despite, this, however, the editors did conclude with a general air of support. The Brunswick Centre was, they said, 'an ideograph of city-centreness', exemplary in fact when considered alongside other city-centre redevelopments. Where else, they proclaimed, could you find housing for 1644 people, 80 shops offices, a cinema, pubs, restaurants, storage for shops, and garaging for 925 cars, all under a single structural umbrella?

The complaints that Crosby had made were, in their opinion, representative of a period and a style, not of a particular designer or scheme. The outward skin of modern buildings, they said, tended to be harsh, impersonal and inhumane, suggesting the home, not of men, but of dinosaurs. The Brunswick had, they concluded, got the bones of the city right. But, making repeated references to the tone of the concrete and to the aspirations of mixed use, what they wanted was the flesh.

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Thirty-three years later, these elements of the Brunswick's ongoing story are finally being readdressed under the direction of Hodgkinson and the practice that was subsequently formed by two key members of his original design team, (the Davids) Levitt and Bernstein. As part of a [pounds sterling]16m redevelopment project, the majority of superstructure is now being painted, as originally envisaged by Hodgkinson, in a Crown Commissioners tone of cream. Set against this, the principal structural elements will remain articulated by applying a protective Keim paint that will leave them as close to their original tone as possible.

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Other interventions include an enlarged supermarket, the roof of which will finally occupy the otherwise bleak raised piazza; more prominent shop fronts and canopies; and significant improvements to the Brunswick Square and Renoir Cinema entrances.

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The marketing wheels are already turning, hailing the Brunswick's reincarnation as a new high street for Bloomsbury. Whatever the tone of its skin, therefore, we await with anticipation the new look Brunswick, complete with the united colours of Benetton, French Connection, Nandos, Starbucks and Strada. When set against a backdrop of Waitrose and Superdrug, it is hoped that people will return to breathe life into this notorious superstructure, not only to shop in Oasis, but also to dwell in one; relaxing, working, living and of course shopping. When all is revealed a more thorough study of the completed works will follow, including detailed discussions with both Patrick Hodgkinson, David Levitt, and residents, past and present.

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2005 photographs by David Levitt

1972 photographs by Richard Einzig