Brunswick Centre, London

A distinctive brutalist structure gets a second life, via a far-from-distinctive new high street

One of London’s best remaining modernist, brutalist housing projects — the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury— is currently undergoing a transformation. (Ed. This piece originally published at cityofsound.com on 22nd July 2006.)

The place had been more than a bit tatty for years, with the main thoroughfare often feeling uncomfortably edgy at night and run-down during the day (I live across the road, and am there frequently.)

Yet underneath the peeling paint on the metal window-frames, below the giant slabs of stained concrete, a brave and optimistic structure stands, filled in turn with brave and optimistic residents. “I see it as a huge ocean liner or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon”, says one.

Here’s an early image of the Centre (architect Patrick Hodgkinson):

Yet a quick glance at Wikipedia reveals a sorry but all-too-familiar tale of a British modernist housing project unfinished and left to wither by the developers and councils:

After failing to…