After finding a documentary on Utopia London, I have decided to blog about Thamesmead as it’s a town I lived close to and have visited it several times. Utopia is "any real or imaginary society, place,state, etc, considered to be perfect or ideal", and that is what the architects of early 21st century tried to create when considering the perfect living conditions for British people, they wanted to build heaven on earth. Thamesmead estates bold concrete blocks with futuristic architectural elements suited the perfect living vision at the time. From this documentary it seems like people have enjoyed living in this dull and cold housing estate, because they knew each other and it felt safe. However the feeling of safety didn’t last very long and the utopian dream soon was in pieces, the estate became more dangerous, the dark walkways were no longer harmless as young people became more violent and preformed destructive acts of violence. Now Thamesmead has become a council estate and people no longer communicate with each other as they used to...I think this shows how one man’s idea of perfection can be others failure. The architects must feel like they have created a monstrosity, because in the end it brought people bleakness instead of happiness.
Video: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/video/2008/apr/16/thamesmead
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| screen shot from the video |
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| screen shot from the video |
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