In the centre of the triangle of land just north of Kensington Gardens which is marked out by Bayswater, Royal Oak and Paddington tube stations stands the Hallfield Estate.
I came to have a gawp at its groovily severe architecture which looks like it might have been conjured up by Peter Saville, during his years creating the look and feel of Joy Division and Factory Records.
The estate was built in the 1950’s on land that had been cleared of housing by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War.
The original architect was Berthold Lubetkin (a modernist architect, also responsible for the London Zoo penguin pool!) and his Tecton practice.
Unfortunately, Tecton folded before the Estate could be built and the project was brought into existence by Denys Lasdun (who would later design the National Theatre on the Southbank) and Lindsay Drake.
Not only do the residents of the Hallfield Estate live in a superb location – its five minutes walk to Hyde Park from here – but the fourteen blocks of flats are rather lovely to look at in an austere kind of way and now considered of significance architecturally. They were Grade II listed in 2011.
