Robin Hood Gardens and the Brutalist Image

Abstract

This article contributes to cultural geography’s continued interest in exploring how images and photographic practices have shaped representations and engagements with architectural space. Using the Robin Hood Gardens Estate – a Brutalist social housing estate in East London as an example, it interrogates how visual strategies associated with the grid, the interruption and the ruin shape different narratives and representations of Brutalist architecture. At the same time, it extends discussions within cultural geography which surround Brutalism and the role that representations play in how the built landscape is mediated, politicised and encountered through different image making strategies, highlighting the importance of the ‘image’ to Brutalism as a style. It concludes by asserting the value of exploring how buildings are represented and how different photographic and image making practices continue to mediate our engagement with the built landscape and inform wider politics associated with specific architectural styles.