Balfron Tower is a 26-storey residential building in Poplar,

Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London borough covering much of the traditional East End. It was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former metropolitan boroughs of Stepney, Poplar, and Bethnal Green. 'Tower Hamlets' was originally ...

East London East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the ...

. Built in a

Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

style, it forms part of the Brownfield Estate, an area of

social housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, d ...

between

Chrisp Street Market Chrisp Street Market is the central marketplace and town centre of Poplar and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was the first purpose-built pedestrian shopping area in the United Kingdom, rebuilt as part of the 1951 Festival ...

and the A12 northern approach to the

Blackwall Tunnel The Blackwall Tunnel is a pair of road tunnels underneath the River Thames in east London, England, linking the London Borough of Tower Hamlets with the Royal Borough of Greenwich, and part of the A102 road. The northern portal lies just south ...

. It was designed by

Ernő Goldfinger Ernő Goldfinger (11 September 1902 – 15 November 1987) was a Hungarian-born architect and designer of furniture. He moved to the United Kingdom in the 1930s, and became a key member of the Modernist architectural movement. He is most prom ...

in 1963 for the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kn ...

, built 1965–67 by the GLC, and has been a

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

since 1996 (Grade II*, originally Grade II). Balfron Tower is stylistically similar to Goldfinger's later

Trellick Tower Trellick Tower is a Grade II* listed tower block on the Cheltenham Estate in North Kensington, London. Opened in 1972, it had been commissioned by the Greater London Council and designed in the Brutalist style by architect Ernő Goldfinger. ...

in London.

Design

Balfron Tower is high and contains 146 homes (136 flats and 10

maisonettes An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are man ...

). Lifts serve every third floor; thus, to reach a flat on the 11th, 12th, or 13th floors, residents or visitors would take a lift to the 12th. The lift shaft sits in a separate service tower, also containing laundry rooms and rubbish chutes, and joined to the residential tower by eight walkways. The maisonettes are on floors 1 and 2, and 15 and 16, causing a break in the pattern of fenestration on the west side. The service tower is topped by a boiler room. In 1985, the original concrete boiler flues were replaced with metal, due to concrete decay. Balfron Tower E14

Carradale House

Carradale House (1967–70) is an adjacent, unique, modernist building, also designed by

and

Grade II In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

listed. The two buildings appear to be natural extensions of each other, linked by style and design, with the long, low form of Carradale House complementing the height of Balfron Tower. All flats have dual window aspect and large south facing balconies, allowing plenty of natural light, and decorated with natural wood panels on the sides. The block is tall with 11 floors, and contains 88 flats. The building has a similar podium to Balfron Tower, albeit more extensive with a large underground car park underneath. It too has sky bridges on the same principle of access at every third floor. After designing Balfron, Goldfinger identified all the possible improvements and incorporated them first in Carradale House and afterwards to Trellick Tower. Like Balfron Tower, the robust nature of the detailing to this building has helped it to weather the passage of time. Over the course of three years, Carradale underwent an extensive and careful renovation under the supervision of English Heritage and the direction of PRP Architects. The two blocks were known as Rowlett Street Phases I and II during development before being named after the Scottish villages of

Balfron Balfron ( gd, Both Fron) is a village in the Stirling council area of Scotland. It is situated near Endrick Water on the A875 road, 18 miles (29 km) west of Stirling and 16 miles (26 km) north of Glasgow. Although a rural settlement, ...

and

Carradale Carradale ( gd, Càradal, ) is a village on the east side of Kintyre, overlooking the Kilbrannan Sound and the west coast of the Isle of Arran in the Firth of Clyde, approximately from Campbeltown. To the north of Carradale is the coastal pea ...

, a pattern followed in naming other locations on the nearby Aberfeldy and Teviot estates.

Brownfield Estate

Owen Hatherley Owen Hatherley (born 24 July 1981 in Southampton, England) is a British writer and journalist based in London who writes primarily on architecture, politics and culture. Early life Hatherley was born in Southampton in 1981, growing up in a 1930s ...

describes the surrounding Brownfield Estate as "all designed with an attention to detail and quality of materials unusual for the 60s or any other decade".

History

Balfron Tower was designed by architect

and is associated with the

style of 1960s architecture. Goldfinger himself was pleased with the design and moved into flat 130, on the 25th floor, for two months in 1968. He and his wife threw champagne parties to find out what the residents liked and disliked about his design. He applied what he learnt to his design for the similar and more famous

in West London. Goldfinger's studio later added

Glenkerry House Glenkerry House is a housing block on the Brownfield Estate in Poplar, London, England, designed by the studio of the controversial Brutalist architect Ernő Goldfinger. 14 storeys high, it stands in proximity to and complements the appearance o ...

on the same estate, complementing Balfron Tower and Carradale in style. The building was given

listed status in March 1996, (later changed to Grade II*) followed by Carradale House in 2000. to spare them from demolition. Carradale and Glenkerry Houses were also included in the Balfron Tower Conservation Area, designated in 1998.Balfron Tower Conservation Area Appraisals and Management Guidelines
, Tower Hamlets Council. Retrieved 23 November 2009 The listing continues to attract comment, especially in view of the failure of another nearby Brutalist estate,

Robin Hood Gardens Robin Hood Gardens is a residential estate in Poplar, London, designed in the late 1960s by architects Alison and Peter Smithson and completed in 1972. It was built as a council housing estate with homes spread across 'streets in the sky': soc ...

, to obtain the same protection. In recent years Balfron Tower has been popular with visitors during the annual

Open House Weekend Open House London is an annual festival celebrating the architecture and urban landscape of London. It is staged by the charity Open City which campaigns to make London a more accessible, equitable and open city. During the Open House festival, ...

. In December 2007, following a ballot of residents in 2006, Tower Hamlets Council transferred its ownership of Balfron Tower, Carradale House and the surrounding Brownfield Estate to

Poplar HARCA Poplar HARCA (Housing and Regeneration Community Association) is a housing association in the East End of London, England. It is the landlord of about 9,000 homes in the East London area, a quarter of which have been sold leasehold; the remainde ...

, a

housing association In Ireland and the United Kingdom, housing associations are private, non-profit making organisations that provide low-cost " social housing" for people in need of a home. Any budget surplus is used to maintain existing housing and to help fi ...

Refurbishment and sell-off

HARCA began a full refurbishment of the buildings in 2011. The architectural firm PRP which has taken up this project is looking to restore these Brutalist structures to their original form as required by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

, and also to bring the buildings up to modern specifications and 21st century living standards. The refurbishment is technically challenging, due to the need to install new services without disturbing the listed exterior. The solid concrete design also suffers inherently from cold bridging, which has to be remedied by internal wall insulation. Residents were to have the option to keep their flats in the blocks, or to move into new low-rise homes nearby, in which case the vacated flats would be sold to finance the works.The future's golden for Balfron
''Building Design'', October 2008 In October 2010, the residents of both blocks were sent notice that the refurbishment would require all residents to move out, due to fire safety and other risks, with no undertaking on whether they could return. The first phase of the refurbishment took place from 2011 to 2014 with the lower block, Carradale House. Key features of the refurbishment include:Balfron Tower & Carradale House
, Poplar HARCA. Retrieved 18 July 2013. replacement of existing windows with high-performance examples matching original pattern; upgrade of thermal performance using materials to provide insulation and vapour barriers; efficient gas-fired boilers for replacement communal heating system; and new wet services, incorporating water conservation measures. Internally, communal spaces and flats are sensitively refurbished in keeping and without altering Goldfinger's original layouts and heritage features. These embody key considerations related to restoring the key elements of the original scheme, undertaking repair and replacement on like-for-like basis, ensuring a lifespan of at least 30 years, taking advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity to scaffold the entire building and upgrading as far as possible to accord with modern standards. This will ensure its future effectiveness and desirability as a place to live. Work to refurbish Balfron Tower was undertaken through a joint partnership with Londonewcastle, a luxury residential developer. Pending the works to Balfron Tower, some flats were temporarily occupied by artists, who contributed to the community and put on displays in "heritage flat" number 123. A major photographic project was undertaken in November 2010. In September 2014,

Wayne Hemingway Wayne Andrew Hemingway (born 19 January 1961) is an English designer and co-founder of Red or Dead. He is also on the Design Council Trustee Board and having been with the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) for a d ...

restored Goldfinger's former flat number 130 to 1960s style as part of a

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

exhibition on brutalism. As residents were decanted, a campaign formed in December 2014 in an attempt to save 50% of the Balfron as social housing. In February 2015, residents and campaigners protested HARCA in February 2015 over fears that social tenants would be evicted. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that no social housing would be retained, and that all of the flats would be sold. Six "heritage" apartments have been retained with original layout and colour scheme, with fixtures matching the originals. The second phase refurbishment plans were strongly opposed by the

Twentieth Century Society The Twentieth Century Society (C20) is a British charity which campaigns for the preservation of architectural heritage from 1914 onwards. The society's interests embrace buildings and artefacts that characterise 20th-century Britain. It is for ...

in 2015. In particular they claim that the 'unsympathetic' replacement of the tower's windows has compromised the distinction and importance of the tower, reducing it from a 'genuinely iconic brutalist masterpiece' to an '

ersatz An ersatz good () is a substitute good, especially one that is considered inferior to the good it replaces. It has particular connotations of wartime usage. Etymology ''Ersatz'' is a German word literally meaning ''substitute'' or ''replacement ...

hybrid'.

Public reaction to sell-off

Professor Rowland Atkinson from the University of Sheffield: "The decision to convert two of the most symbolic tower blocks in London from local authority to private residences is a sign of how much the city has been set in service to the needs of capital and the rich."

In popular culture

Shots of the building are featured in music videos for "

This Is Music "This Is Music" is a song by the English alternative rock band The Verve. It was released as the first single from their second album, ''A Northern Soul''. The song charted at number 35 in the United Kingdom. "This Is Music" featured as the band' ...

" by

The Verve The Verve were an English rock band formed in Wigan in 1990 by lead vocalist Richard Ashcroft, guitarist Nick McCabe, bass guitarist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury. Guitarist and keyboard player Simon Tong later became a member in ...

, "

Morning Glory Morning glory (also written as morning-glory) is the common name for over 1,000 species of flowering plants in the family Convolvulaceae, whose current taxonomy and systematics are in flux. Morning glory species belong to many genera, some of ...

" by

Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

, "Mortalhas" by ProfJam, " Ready to Go" by

Republica Republica are an English alternative rock band formed in 1994. The height of their popularity spanned from 1996 to 1999. The current line-up consists of Saffron (vocals), Tim Dorney (keyboards), Johnny Male (guitar), Conor Lawrence (drums). T ...

, and “ Money Talks” by

Rubella Ballet Rubella Ballet are an English gothic anarcho-punk band formed in 1979, who released several albums before splitting up in 1991. They reformed in 2000. History The band was formed by drummer Sid Ation (born Sid Truelove, 18 April 1960, Sutton ...

. Balfron Tower has appeared as a location in many British television programmes, often when an impression of urban deprivation was required. Some that used it extensively are "Faking It", the second episode of the BBC series '' Hustle''; the ITV series '' The Fixer''; and ''

Whitechapel Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...

'', a three-part drama series produced by Carnival Films. The tower is featured in the 1988 film ''

For Queen and Country ''For Queen and Country'' is a 1988 crime drama film co-written and directed by Martin Stellman and starring Denzel Washington in Panavision. Washington stars as Reuben James, a Black British former paratrooper, who joined the British Army to esc ...

'', starring

Denzel Washington Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has been described as an actor who reconfigured "the concept of classic movie stardom". Throughout his career spanning over four decades, Washington ha ...

and was the filming location for ''

Shopping Shopping is an activity in which a customer browses the available goods or services presented by one or more retailers with the potential intent to purchase a suitable selection of them. A typology of shopper types has been developed by scho ...

'', a 1994 film written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. It also features in

Danny Boyle Daniel Francis Boyle (born 20 October 1956) is an English director and producer. He is known for his work on films including '' Shallow Grave'', '' Trainspotting'' and its sequel '' T2 Trainspotting'', '' The Beach'', ''28 Days Later'', '' S ...

's post-apocalyptic horror film ''

28 Days Later ''28 Days Later'' is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover the accidental release of a highly contagiou ...

'' and the 2011 film ''

Blitz Blitz, German for "lightning", may refer to: Military uses *Blitzkrieg, blitz campaign, or blitz, a type of military campaign *The Blitz, the German aerial campaign against Britain in the Second World War *, an Imperial German Navy light cruiser b ...

''. In July 2014 artist

Catherine Yass Catherine Yass (born 1963) is an English artist known for her wall-mounted lightboxes. Biography Catherine Yass was born in 1963 in London. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, and Goldsmiths College. ...

was refused permission to drop a piano from the Tower as part of a "community workshop to explore how sound travels". In 2014, the

refurbished flat 130, where Goldfinger lived, to resemble its appearance in the 1960s. The work was designed by Tilly Hemmingway, with objects donated by the Land of Lost Content, a popular culture museum in Shropshire. UK grime artist

Wiley Wiley may refer to: Locations * Wiley, Colorado, a U.S. town * Wiley, Pleasants County, West Virginia, U.S. * Wiley-Kaserne, a district of the city of Neu-Ulm, Germany People * Wiley (musician), British grime MC, rapper, and producer * Wiley Mil ...

used Balfron Tower and the Brownfield Estate as the location for the music video of his track "P Money" in 2015, which was then later featured in his 2017 album '' Godfather''. The tower is referenced in the song "Balfron" by the band John on their album ''God Speed in the National Limit''.

Transport

Buses

The estate is served by

London Buses London Buses is the subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL) that manages most bus services in London, England. It was formed following the Greater London Authority Act 1999 that transferred control of London Regional Transport (LRT) bus s ...

routes 108 and 309.

routes 15,

115 115 may refer to: * 115 (number), the number * AD 115, a year in the 2nd century AD * 115 BC, a year in the 2nd century BC * 115 (Hampshire Fortress) Corps Engineer Regiment, Royal Engineers, a unit in the UK Territorial Army * 115 (Leicestershire) ...

and D8 run nearby.

Docklands Light Railway

The nearest stations are

Langdon Park Langdon Park may refer to: *Langdon, Washington, D.C., an area of Washington, D.C. in the United States *Langdon Park DLR station, a Docklands Light Railway station in Poplar, London, United Kingdom *Langdon Park School Langdon Park School is a ...

and All Saints for

Docklands Light Railway The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is an automated light metro system serving the redeveloped Docklands area of London, England and provides a direct connection between London's two major financial districts, Canary Wharf and the City of Lo ...

services towards

Canary Wharf Canary Wharf is an area of London, England, located near the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Canary Wharf is defined by the Greater London Authority as being part of London's central business district, alongside Central Lon ...

and Stratford.

References

External links

Points (and slabs) of interest
by Sarah Buckingham
Building Design Online, Balfron's human face
{{subscription required
Balfron Tower: a building archive
of public documents, by David Roberts,

Bartlett School of Architecture Bartlett may refer to: Places *Bartlett Bay, Canada, Arctic waterway * Wharerata, New Zealand, also known as Bartletts United States * Bartlett, Illinois ** Bartlett station, a commuter railroad station * Bartlett, Iowa * Bartlett, Kansas * ...

Brutalist architecture in London Ernő Goldfinger buildings Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Tourist attractions in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Residential skyscrapers in London Poplar, London 1967 establishments in England Skyscrapers in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Residential buildings completed in 1967