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Anorak News | How London’s Sick Heygate Estate Created South London Dragons (Photos)

How London’s Sick Heygate Estate Created South London Dragons (Photos)

by | 23rd, August 2010

THERE aren’t only dragons in south London, there’s a diseased elephant, a plastic castle and the Heygate Estate, a large housing estate in Walworth. It’s due to be demolished as part of Southwark Council’s regeneration plan for the area. In it’s place will be garden squares, low-rise terraces and… Yes, there will be a dreaded tower block, but it’s been designed by Sir Norman Foster – so it will look less like a monolith to tuberculosis than a giant penis. It will invigorate the area.

Once upon a time, the plan was for a series of high-rises and walkways linking Crystal Palace to the river. You would walk about south London in the clouds, never needing to touch the ground until you reached the Thames. There you would stand pale as an anaemic’s turd as you tapped on the glass and gazed at the wonders of North London in the great beyond.

As our own Ed Barrett writes:

South-East London has never enjoyed a good press. Guidebooks treat it as an afterthought, an appendix to the real business elsewhere in the capital. Historical Greenwich is mentioned, of course, and a handful of other tourist-friendly sights, but that’s your lot. The days when the South Bank theatres were surrounded by syphilitic brothels and murderous backstreets are long gone, yet the stigma persists. This corner of the capital remains a world apart.

Here’s how architecture plays its part in monstering a region:

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A general view of the Heygate Estate, a large housing estate in Walworth, London. The estate now largely abandoned, is due to be demolished as part of Southwark Council's regeneration plan for the area.



Posted: 23rd, August 2010 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink