Robin hood gardens to be torn down
BLACKWALL'S Robin Hood Gardens estate will be demolished after the Government chose not to protect the structure.
Culture minister Margaret Hodge backed residents and English Heritage in refusing to list the 1970s brutalist housing development, leaving the way open for English Partnerships to create a scheme for about 3,000 homes on the site.
Architectural digest Building design collected more than 1,500 names including Lord Richard Rogers calling for Peter and Alison Smithson's creation to remain. But Tower Hamlets Council, local councillors and residents were keen to see it make way for the proposed Blackwall Reach scheme.
A major blow to its backers came in May when English Heritage recommended it should not be listed, claiming "it fails as a place for human beings to live."
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Ms Hodge said: "The architects' brief was to design a place fit for people to live, of course. But in that respect, I agree with my expert advisors English Heritage, that it simply doesn't work.
"Although I accept that it was designed by distinguished architects, I do not think that their reputation outweighs the evidence that Robin Hood Gardens was not innovative in terms of the 'streets-in-the-air' concept and it is not fit for purpose."
Robin Hood Gardens is a third world structure, thank God it will demolished.