Stepney and the Politics of High-Rise Housing: Limehouse Fields to John Scurr House, 1925–1937

Abstract

High-rise housing, long seen as a postwar disaster, has an interwar prehistory characterised by debate between the advocates and critics of multistorey flats for social housing. In London, the controversy divided the political Left (initially firmly opposed to 'barracks for the working classes') and Right (willing to contemplate multistorey solutions), while others argued from a stated position of political neutrality for advanced modern solutions to urban living. This debate forms the background to a paper that examines a number of experimental slum clearance and redevelopment schemes, all featuring high-rise blocks served by lifts. All were promoted by the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney. John Scurr House (built 1936–1937), Riverside Mansions (1925–1928) and the Limehouse Fields project (1925 but never built) are examined in this paper, together with the local politics that shaped events in one East End borough, and the evolution of architectural and planning ideas that, after World War II, were to shape so much of London's housing.