ipl-logo

What Was The Biggest Housing Shortage In Britain In The Twentieth Century

578 Words3 Pages

Failure through society The twentieth Century saw Britain’s biggest housing shortage due to the effects of both the First and Second World War. The damage caused by bombing, left many families in desperate need of shelter. ‘It was estimated that 750,000 new homes were required in England and Wales in 1945,’ [1] this forced the new elected labour government to urgently prioritise their housing policy. The sheer number of new housing that was needed to meet the needs of society was too large and costly to continue producing them by traditional methods. Britain like many other European countries were also facing a shortage in basic amenities, building resources and ‘soldiers returning from war and rising working class expectations,’ [1] only intensified the stress on the government. Architects developed a new system and way of living. They aimed to create a healthy living environment for the masses. The post-modernist approach signified a turning point in society as for the first time more people were able to afford their own home, despite class. This was the era of building …show more content…

Architect Neave Brown designed a ‘low rise, high density’ [2] estate. ‘The key elements of the estate are two parallel pedestrian streets separated by a park, one a kilometre long, formed by two rows of terraces against the railway,’ [2] This new housing scheme boasted 520 new homes for over 1600 people. The sheer size of this complex ordered maintenance to keep it looking aesthetically attractive. With major government cuts this was not possible and the overall appearance deteriorated. Some would argue that this was a failure as society wasn’t ready for this type of living. Alexander Row initialled failed due to a lack of education given to people in society. Individuals didn't understand the concept of living in mass housing and therefore socially this form did not

Show More
Related
303 Words | 2 Pages

Chapters 8 tells a few stories, mostly focusing on Canadian cities such as Vancouver, and gives explanations on restructuring and dislocation. This chapter explains how relocating or upgrading housing effects. It is also discussed how the government and government programs deal with displacement and rehabilitation. In chapter 9, the author discusses gentrification and focuses specifically on Sydney.

Read More
1200 Words | 5 Pages

After all, architects typically constructed the projects to include a diverse possibility of uses, while tenements merely sought to maximize tenants. Bauman et. al. describe the Richard Allen Homes as matching the style of the surrounding North Philadelphia buildings and featuring “a community building, housing management offices, workshops, a nursery, an auditorium, and grassy courts planted with trees and shrubbery” (Bauman et. al. 274).

Read More
1080 Words | 5 Pages

The rate and size of growth indicated by Document 1 caused the streets to become crowded not only with people, but with new buildings, made narrow. These buildings that surrounded the streets were of a standardized quality, all made of brick in a fashion lacking any artistic grace. Pollution existed everywhere, and it can be assumed that the public health infrastructure (running water, doctors and hospitals) was equally poor. If Document 1 and 2 are to be believed, as the properly should, Manchester’s population’s rate of growth as part of the economic growth of the city produced horrid infrastructure that served only to exacerbate problems that existed within the city itself. Living conditions were poor as a result of the aforementioned goings-on of Manchester.

Read More
1846 Words | 8 Pages

Midterm Paper A. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth History shows that the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex symbolizes how architects, politicians and policymakers have failed to their job. Relatively, if one tries to search of “Puritt-Igoe” online, the images shown reveal is legacy: an imploded building; broken windows; and vandalized hallways. The Myth Pruitt-Igoe Myth is centered on the impact of the 1949 Housing Act, because this legislated did not only build Pruitt-Igoe but it also built other high-rise public housing decades after the Second World War.

Read More
971 Words | 4 Pages

There was a high demand for housing as there was a rise in the number of women and servicemen returned home from the war, many of them wanted to marry and start families. Not only this, there were also fears of homelessness and this raised the need for more housing in the country (Glennerster, 2000). Bevan wanted the new houses to be built as much higher a standard than it was already being discussed at the council in order to improve the living standard of the people. Labour government 1945-50 wanted to build quality housing and not quantity for the people. They claimed that working class people were to live in a quality housing as the middle class.

Read More
1690 Words | 7 Pages

One may think these conditions only applied to the poorest members of society, but, in fact, entire cities of people were living like this. Manchester, for instance, seen to be the center of English industry and production, changed dramatically because of urbanization and industrialization. The English Poet Robert Southey, in Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, comments on Manchester that it has “...this multitude crowded together in narrow streets, the houses built of brick and blackened with smoke: frequent buildings among them as large as convents, without their antiquity, without their beauty….”(Document Q). Here, Robert Southey is comparing the older, bucolic and pastoral England with the modern cities in which productivity and profit is valued above maintaining an environment conducive to people’s health and happiness.

Read More
1651 Words | 7 Pages

Inside, rather than providing the order and simplicity that the modernists worshipped, Venturi’s design chose to surprise people with its contradictions. The interior design played with concepts of scale, with an oversized fireplace, and an undersized stairway which leads to nowhere. While the Vanna Venturi house is widely considered to be the first postmodern building, Robert Venturi insists he wasn’t trying to create a new movement. Maybe it was just ‘art’ and that “sometimes, rules are meant to be broken.” (Robert Venturi, wttw.com).

Read More
1252 Words | 6 Pages

There were a variety of national issues that occurred due to the development of public housing.

Read More
199 Words | 1 Pages

They elicited change and powered their way through history challenging social norms and fighting social injustices. Settlement House History The history of settlement houses began in the late 1800’s to help

Read More
1720 Words | 7 Pages

Introduction After WW2 there was a significant increase in suburbanization which greatly decreased the investing in cities which meant they were deteriorating and experiencing economic downturn. In an effort to remedy this the Federal Government created the Housing Act of 1949 also known as Urban Renewal. This act allowed the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to buy “blighted”, “20 per cent or more of the homes in an area had one or more ‘substandard’ elements and could be subject to slum clearance”, communities and fund their revitalization. (Lopez 459) Some of the goals of the Act were to eliminate substandard housing, revitalize economies and eliminate segregation.

Read More
524 Words | 3 Pages

The opportunities that arose due to the Industrial Revolution influenced people to immigrate to America, most specifically to the developing urban cities. As a result of this, there was a huge demand for housing that laid in close proximity to the factories. The houses that people lived in during the American Industrial Revolution were often wretched and dilapidated; essentially they were not the ideal houses to live in. These houses were referred to as the “slums”. Several people would live in one room, which was the size of an apartment.

Read More
1078 Words | 5 Pages

Starting in the 1980s, successive governments encouraged local authorities to sell off social housing, which has not been replaced. The private construction sector has so far failed to increase supply in response to soaring demand("Simon Communities in Ireland > Homelessness > Causes of Homelessness," n.d.). Step Five: Recommend and Implement Solutions IT sounds overly-simplistic, but the ¬solution to solving Ireland’s accommodation crisis is to build more houses and apartments.

Read More
779 Words | 4 Pages

4.2) Engineering Restrictions and Anti-engineering Campaigns To keep pace with the growing demand of houses in the U.K, at least 250,000 houses should be built annually. However, bureaucratic engineering approvals, land restrictions, and stringent rules governing the design and construction of tall buildings including the Grenfell Tower, are drawbacks to the speedy construction of housing units (Scott p.1). After the inferno, the Friends of Richmond Park, and residents of the west London suburbs, actively campaigned against the construction of tall buildings. Although the restrictions and campaigns were meant to safeguard the safety of the occupants, they gradually contributed to the housing shortage currently

Read More
1898 Words | 8 Pages

It contested the professions and the way it was taught. It turned away from conventional architecture and proposed more adaptive architecture that would accommodate the emergent needs of its users through a rebellious style in an age heavily influenced by pop- culture and Dadaism. It redefined architecture and embraced a criteria o perishable yet indefinite, multifunctional space that was applied to new city models. It emphasized a vital support to culturally changing mechanisms of the city and not simply functional organization of space. The radical ideas experimented with spatial, creative, political and consumer freedom that surfaced in the 1960’s.

Read More
3141 Words | 13 Pages

The dramatic housing price started in the last 1990`s in many countries like London and United Kingdom. 80,000 children are living in temporary accommodation. We can say that London housing is in a state of crisis never because they are struggling to deliver enough homes for the current population. United Kingdom has

Read More

More about What Was The Biggest Housing Shortage In Britain In The Twentieth Century

Related Topics

Open Document