London Estates

London-based publisher FUEL‘s books on Modernist and Brutalist architecture have generally focused on Russia and Central Asia, in a growing series of titles with a landscape-hardcover format. With London Estates, they bring the project to their own doorstep, documenting council housing across the capital.

The buildings within date from the 40s to the 80s, with an impressive array of architects behind them such as Ernő Goldfinger and Basil Spence. All in all, the book documents an impressive 275 structures from all London’s boroughs.

While whole books can (and have) been written on single standout examples of London council housing, the approach of London Estates is rather to give as full a picture as possible. The result is likely the most comprehensive survey of its type, ranging from celebrated Modernist icons on one hand to distressed and dilapidated unknowns on the other. The overall picture that emerges occupies a space between the utopian and dystopian extremes often associated with postwar Brutalism and concrete Modernism in Europe, and instead shows a side of London architecture that, if less celebrated than its flashier counterparts, is hardly less iconic.