Politics, property and planning: building the Brunswick, 1958-74

摘要

One of London's best-known 1960s developments, the Brunswick in Bloomsbury was one of the first exemplars of the shift from high-rise to 'carpet' forms for urban development. Conceived originally as a private sector mixed-use venture, as realised it was a private-public hybrid, in which the contractor/ developer McAlpine built the commercial portions as a speculative venture but built the housing, to normal Parker Morris standards, for the newly-formed Camden council. Using newly available archival and other sources, the paper provides for the first time a full historical account of this convoluted project, showing how it was shaped and reshaped by the forces operating on the planning and development process in 1960s London, including in particular the housing policy of successive governments.