Problems With Easy Street: at the Smithsons' 'Robin Hood Gardens Estate' for Open House Weekend, Sunday 17 September 2006

Abstract

I walked down Poplar High Street with my partner on a bright September afternoon to see an exhibition at Robin Hood Gardens Estate. Poplar is an uncared for area of London to the north of Canary Wharf – uncared for not in the sense that nobody cares, the people who live there certainly do, but in the sense that nobody from outside has ever cared, or it seems so when you’re walking between the A13 and A102. Number One Canada Square both looms large and stands distant on the horizon here, reminding visitors of the problems caused by the construction of ‘zones’, ‘districts’ or artificial ‘quarters’ – the city of the patchwork quilt that is either never quite stitched up, or is perhaps stitched up good ’n’ proper. ...