Tower Block.

By Miles Glendinning and Stefan Muthesius. Yale University Press 1994. 40 [pounds sterling].

This is an astonishing book, scarcely to be taken in at one reading (or capable of being so read). No wonder it required two authors. It combines an exhaustive trawl through architectural theory and design in Britain as applied to housing between 1945 and 1970, with a comprehensive account of housing finance and local and central government initiatives during the same period: everything from Team X theories to negotiating methods for tower block package deals. There is a certain obsessiveness about it all that leads to overkill -- yet the subject merits obsessiveness: this enormous national effort that altered the face of the country, yet whose products are now so widely disregarded.

`During our investigations we visited all multi-storey blocks of public housing in the UK [reviewer's emphasis], and were surprised to discover how few were in a state of serious dilapidation -- in contrast to high flats' general "media image"'write the authors. This illustrates both the thoroughness of research and the refusal to be drawn into a commitment: a studied detachment is observed throughout which has the effect of puncturing a number of the more hysterical viewpoints, but is ultimately irritating, especially to an architect. The account of architectural theory is so dead-pan that one suspects a lack of architectural response, and this is supported when, for example, the architecturally finest of `tower blocks' are confused: a picture of Goldfinger's Balfron Tower is mislabelled Trellick Tower, and Basil Spence's impressive and lamented Hutchesontown flats are described merely as `elaborate' when Bunton's appalling Red Road (Glasgow) is a `mighty outcrop'.

Enthusiasm seems most to be aroused by the story of Bailie Gibson's brief but numerically effective high-rise housing drive in Glasgow, and municipal politics have probably never been made to sound more dramatic. But while it is legitimate to adopt a stance that values sheer output above everything else, it is not so then to dignify the products with epithets such as `monumental', implying architectural qualities which are not present and whose value has been discounted.

Responsibility for the prevalence of `tower blocks' is laid paradoxically at the feet of the Town and Country Planning Association and fellow thinkers: their advocacy of new towns and `overspill' (to enable all to have a house and garden), coupled with `green belts' to restrict the growth of the existing cities, led to a land short-age for rehousing within those cities; but councillors were not willing to see their population and rating base reduced, so used all available `pockets' within their boundaries to build as much housing as possible a task which tower blocks fulfilled admirably.

The assiduity of the authors turns up interesting facts, such as that Nicholas Taylor, editor of the AR's special housing issue of November 1967 which did much to discredit Spence's flats and other high-rise schemes, was writing only three years earlier, `No visitor to Glasgow this year can fail to marvel at the towers of flats shooting up in every direction...'

The book is of great value as a collection of information and quotations and of touching original period photographs (though not such inspiring recent shots), but its interpretations will be questioned by many. There is also little attempt to discuss the aftermath, and the technical problems of `system-built' and other blocks are not addressed.