De Beauvoir Estate IX (2020) Source:&nbsp David GrandorgeWe must acknowledge that the great post-war social housing estates, despite their flaws, are still held in great affection by many who live in them, says David Grandorge This photograph was taken from a parking area (for residents use only) on the De Beauvoir Estate in Hackney, east London, in February 2020.It depicts, at its centre, an 18-storey tower in the mid-distance. On the right are the lower storeys of a tower of similar design and on the left a four-storey rendered building containing stacked maisonettes. A single-storey storage building or plant room (it was labelled vaguely) is attached to it. A narrow, inclined road beside this small structure gives vehicles access to the road above.The De Beauvoir Estate was completed in 1968, a year in which 420,000 new homes were built in the UK, many of them high-rise and system-built. In that same year, the recently completed system-built tower block Ronan Point suffered a partial collapse, a tragic event caused by a gas explosion.AdvertisementThis failure of machine, and consequently building fabric, led in the following years to widespread popular dissatisfaction with, and mistrust of, post-war housing. Two generations later, some of this mistrust lingers. But there are many who have lived in these housing types over an extended period who have not only got used to the austere language of the buildings they inhabit, but have come to embrace the collective way of life the architecture supports.The photograph above was one of many to be featured in an exhibition given the title Great Estates: An Incomplete Anthology of Social Housing in London. It was to be held in Stephen Taylors Building Workshop in the heart of the De Beauvoir Estate and was due to open on 19 March 2020. It was indefinitely postponed due to the spread of a virus that had a significant effect on, well, so many things.The pictures that were to be featured in this show echoed, in composition and subject matter, many of those taken by the German photographer Axel Htte of social housing in London. Made between 1982 and 1984, they were published in a book given the intentionally simple title London.Htte photographed many collective housing types from different eras in the districts of Spitalfields, Shoreditch, Hoxton, Bethnal Green, Shadwell and Limehouse in the East End and Bermondsey, Borough, Lambeth, Kennington and Camberwell in south London. The subjects were chosen with great care. He seemed to understand the DNA of the city at that time. Some of the examples he documented exist in a similar state to that shown in his very precise photographs. Others have been changed significantly by what has been built beside or beyond them. All have survived, with only minor changes to their external appearance mainly the addition of elements to make them more secure.AdvertisementThe world imagined by the estates designers did not materialise, but we must acknowledge that these great estates, despite their flaws, are still held in great affection by many, if not all, of their occupants. Local authorities take note. No more demolition please.David Grandorge is a photographer and senior lecturer in architecture at London Met. His fee for this column has been donated to support the publication of new and diverse voices in the AJ2025-01-31David Grandorgecomment and share