History of South Acton Estate
The area was originally built to a traditional Victorian street pattern with medium density terraced housing occupying the majority of the site. Although initially having good north/south links, the construction of the railway lines created a permanent barrier in these areas. In the post war period, the area was earmarked for comprehensive redevelopment that would involve clearance of the 19th century properties labelled as slums. This was a common response by local authorities to the problems of poor housing after the war and it led to the proliferation of medium and high rise system built housing estates, influenced by Modernist ideals of Le Corbusier who sought to engineer the human machine Government subsidies and local politics also encouraged the production of system built and high rise housing. The council embarked on comprehensive redevelopment in 1949 with the construction of Bollo Court. The redevelopment continued over the 50s, 60s and 70s with a variety of styles and archetypes.
Read more about this topic: South Acton, London
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, south and/or estate:
“Considered in its entirety, psychoanalysis wont do. Its an end product, moreover, like a dinosaur or a zeppelin; no better theory can ever be erected on its ruins, which will remain for ever one of the saddest and strangest of all landmarks in the history of twentieth-century thought.”
—Peter B. Medawar (19151987)
“As History stands, it is a sort of Chinese Play, without end and without lesson.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (18381918)
“The South Wind is a baker.”
—Vachel Lindsay (18791931)
“Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content,
The quiet mind is richer than a crown;
Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent,
The poor estate scorns Fortunes angry frown.
Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss,
Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss.”
—Robert Greene (1558?1592)