Un-making Red Road

Earlier this month I was lucky enough to hear Jane M. Jacobs talk about her research into the Un-making of Red Road, a famous Glasgow high rise estate that is currently undergoing phased demolition and regeneration. As part of her presentation Jacobs showed this powerful film showing the demolition of the largest and most iconic of the Red Road tower blocks.

 The story of the Red Road Flats is a familiar one:

• the estate was designed in the late 1960’s by an architect working for the City who embraced modern design practice and construction techniques and was heralded as the solution to Glasgow’s housing problems
• it was celebrated by early residents who enjoyed a higher standard of living than they had experienced in Glasgow's over-crowded, inner-city tenements
• it suffered from decline due to recession, a lack of investment, and stigma during the 1970s and 80s and became ‘last resort’ housing for vulnerable groups, including asylum seekers, in the 1990s
• the use of asbestos throughout the high rise blocks made safe adaptation and refurbishment difficult.

[Red Road during construction via skyscrapercity]

Despite these issues demolition was not an inevitable outcome for Red Road. Rather as Jacobs, Cairns and Strebel argue, ‘the fact of Red Road as a housing failure’ was produced by the official discourse which emphasised the presence of asbestos in the building fabric and ‘short-circuited’ any attempt by residents or campaign groups to ‘complicate … the story of Red Road.’ At first glance this justification does seem like a sensible and irrefutable one. However the presence of asbestos in a high rise block does not always lead to demolition. For example, in my own estate, Golden Lane, the presence of asbestos in the building fabric does not guarantee its demolition. In the estate plan it is Golden Lane’s architectural heritage, listed status and importance as ‘an example of post-war residential architecture’ that is emphasised. Warts and all Golden Lane is treated very differently to Red Road; it is protected, repaired and restored.

For me, the divergent paths of these two estates, with similar historic routes, questions the often told story of inevitable modernist high rise decline and eventual destruction. Stories told about Red Road and other estates show that modernist housing does not follow one linear path, but multiple, complex and contested ones.