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Chapter 4 The Brunswick as Social Space    
 
Introduction 
The previous two chapters set out the complex circumstances and contested nature of 
the Brunswick?s evolution and materialisation as a powerful aesthetic image, which 
demanded attention over and above its purpose as a setting for local life in a dense, 
central urban context.  As an acclaimed work of architecture it was critically located 
within the narrative of Modernist ideology, while conceived by the architect as a 
homage to specific national and local historic building traditions.  But it also revealed 
itself over time, and as society itself evolved in the post-war period, to have inherent 
structural and programmatic flaws which needed to be addressed, or ?mended?.  As a 
result of that process, some aspect of its architectural and ideological vision has 
arguably been lost, in particular the idea of the building as an integrated mix of public 
and private spaces.  To an extent, this has crystallised a differentiation between the 
notion of the Brunswick as an image which may be repackaged and manipulated to 
contrasting effect and purpose, and the reality of the Brunswick as a lived social 
space, or habitat, experienced at a sensory level as the physical framework of daily 
life. 
 The following two chapters lay out the results of ethnographic research 
conducted at the Brunswick (see 1.3.2), interpreted and organised to illustrate a 
concept of the building, experienced ?from the inside?, less as a unified, objectifiable, 
architectural image than as a subjectively-perceived, sensory mass of segmented and 
integrated spaces, surfaces and lines of demarcation, which mirror a social landscape 
built of multiple narratives of individual identity.  Chapter 4 focuses primarily on the 
relationships between public and private spaces and identities, the boundaries that 
demarcate them, and the ways in which these boundaries are sustained and 
manipulated.  It goes on to consider how these disparate relationships and spaces 
come together as ?council estate?, as a particular form of social and physical identity 
within the city which is, on the one hand, diametrically opposed in its cultural 
implications to the phenomenon of the ?architectural icon?, and it?s transcendent, 
fetish-like power over the imaginary; and yet, on the other hand, is inextricably 
connected to it by virtue of their mutual association with the Modern Movement 
tradition. 
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 Chapter 5 focusses more particularly on the space of the home itself, as the 
point of most intense and personal engagement and identification both with the larger 
habitat of the Brunswick and the city beyond, and the space in which the greatest 
personal autonomy is exercised in terms of expressing and representing the social 
connections which generate a narrative of personal identity within a particular 
physical environment.   The contrasting ways in which people conceive of and 
represent their ideas of home eloquently express notions of identity, direction and 
belonging in the world, and highlight the reality of the home space less as a discrete, 
physically-bounded entity defined by its walls, but rather as a fluid concept, marked 
out by material signs, within an expanded and expansive notion of habitat, layered 
with cultural meaning. 
 
4.1. Layers of spatial and social existence 
4.1.1 inside and outside spaces 
?Mary said a wonderful thing when somebody asked her about living in the Brunswick 
Centre? she said, ?It?s wonderful, I never see anybody?.  I suddenly realised along 
with that, that the emptiness of the place is actually one of its attractions? you?d 
think it was slightly menacing.  But it?s not??   
Conal bought his flat on the sixth floor in 1994.  Both he and his partner Mary, 
an artist, were divorced when they moved in together with her teenage daughter, and 
shortly afterwards they bought a dog which became a much-loved companion.  Mary 
has since died, the daughter has moved out, and the dog was tragically run over 
shortly after my last interview with Conal.  As he says, ?there were three ? four really 
? of us? at the beginning, and he ?would have to find whatever little space there was?, 
but now he lives in the two-bedroom flat alone, using one room as an office where 
sometimes an assistant will come and work with him. 
 Conal maintains a variety of social relations with friends and collaborators 
outside his home, and also has a girlfriend who lives in her own house in north 
London.  Although he mostly works at home, he has part-time teaching jobs 
elsewhere, and visits Greece on a regular basis with friends.  He has been trying to 
buy a plot of land there on which to build a house, although this has recently fallen 
through.  His flat is full of objects and images which prompt a ready verbal narrative 
about different people and places, extending back many years. 
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 Social relationships and interactions are evidently important to Conal, both 
within and beyond the family (he has two grown-up sons of his own and two 
grandchildren), but he loves the emptiness inside the Brunswick.  This has not always 
been the case: ?I think I?ve grown to love the building?. I think I?m much more 
appreciative of it now than I was when I first moved in?.  It may have been his 
partner?s appreciation, during her illness, which initially opened his eyes to the virtues 
of its quietness and emptiness. The Brunswick became for her a haven of peace and 
quiet, and their flat a place where she could paint on increasingly contemplative 
themes.  But now, the fact that the atrium spaces at the heart of the housing blocks 
remain quiet, uninhabited zones is a great relief to Conal in comparison to the 
business of the newly refurbished shopping centre.   The empty atrium provides an 
effective buffer from the hubbub of people he describes as shopaholics and caffeine 
addicts (a not so oblique reference to the alcoholics and drug addicts they have 
replaced) around the new retail and restaurant outlets he can see from his windows.   
 Conal himself has no interest in these sorts of activities, but, more importantly, 
he dislikes the fact that the newcomers are people ?who you don?t know!?.  The 
relationship between the precinct space and the living-room windows of the flats 
looking over the precinct is acoustically very intimate, even though the line of vision 
is across towards the windows of the opposite block, or the upper storeys of the older 
buildings on Bernard Street, and up to the sky, not down. To get a view of the precinct 
you need to stand up and look down with some deliberation.   
 For these reasons, it has become an especial pleasure for Conal to be able to 
walk out of his flat into the empty space of the atrium where he unlikely to bump into 
anybody that he doesn?t know, nor even anyone that he does know.  As a person who 
does not depend on chance encounters or ?gossip opportunities?, as another resident 
puts it, to sustain a social existence, it suits him very well.  Moreover, it generates an 
extended zone of privacy and belonging around his flat which perhaps compensates to 
some extent for the small size of the flat itself.  His sense of proprietorship within his 
own territory is effectively extended by his awareness of his own flat as part of a more 
global scheme, which he is particularly able to visualise and hold in his mind?s eye 
because he is an architect and very familiar with the plans of the Brunswick. His 
reiteration of the term ?end bedroom?, to describe the second bedroom where he has 
his office, implies an awareness of linearity and horizontality in the spatial 
dimensions of his life, and a tangible sense of the extent of the three-and-a-half  bays 
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of the building, and its overall structural framework, beyond the brick-built party 
walls of his own space.  So although another resident describes Conal?s flat as ?very 
interior? (compared to her own), in terms of the way he has done it up, his own 
perception of the space seems more expansive. 
 Conal?s enjoyment of the empty atrium space also stems from the fact that it 
shows that security is working at the Brunswick, and that undesirable intruders have 
been successfully excluded.  One of his main points of disagreement with the original 
design of the building is the idea of the permeable ?internal street? connected to the 
public spaces outside via numerous open access points.  He believes it was a big 
mistake to underestimate the importance of security, although at the time when the 
Brunswick was built, the social problems later to be presented by alcoholics, drug 
addicts and prostitutes entering the housing blocks were not foreseen.   
For most residents, it is the street outside, beyond the security doors to the 
blocks, where social interactions with local friends and acquaintances occur, in and 
outside the shops, but in contrast to the traditional residential street, not immediately 
outside their homes. Stephanie, who is largely housebound, tells me she is lucky to 
live on the ?outside? of the Brunswick, because it looks over the street and the pub, 
rather than onto the precinct and the opposite block, and so gives her some sense of 
connection to the city without having to go anywhere.  She says she used to enjoy the 
atrium space as well, until they sealed up the ?view-holes? to the outside, and secured 
the entrances, because it felt like being ?outside? without going out, but in its current, 
internalised form she finds it oppressive.  But Conal, who is connected to the city 
beyond the Brunswick by a strong network of social connections, prefers to maintain 
everyday, local social contacts at a distance from his own front door.  As a dog-
 owner, he experiences the local squares as another context for sociable exchanges 
with others walking their dogs, including residents whom he is much less likely to 
meet inside the boundaries of the Brunswick itself. 
 
4.1.2 local and global communities 
The floor on which Conal lives, together with the top floor above it, and the floor 
below, are perceived by others who live there as having a strong sense of 
?community? compared to the lower floors of the Brunswick.  Conal does not really 
refer to his neighbours, and although some of them do visit socially, it is because he 
also happens to have a relationship with them outside his Brunswick life, rather than 
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because they are neighbours per se.  In fact, there is a higher proportion of 
?newcomers? (see 1.4.3) on the upper floors.  Some of these people, who tend to have 
good jobs and wide social networks extending beyond the immediate locality, have 
chosen to invest in the local community they believe they have found at the 
Brunswick as a kind of project, partly because they have not previously experienced 
that kind of life, lived at local level within the global city. 
 Susan, who initially shared her flat with a flatmate, but has now established a 
more conventional household set-up with her boyfriend and their baby, says that ?we 
genuinely didn?t know our neighbours? where she lived before (in the St George?s 
Fields housing development of similar design to the Brunswick, near Marble Arch).  
By contrast, ?the community?s much better here.?  She describes the drawn-out, 
unusually intimate, process of buying the flat from the elderly couple who lived there 
as like ?buying a flat from your granny?, and she also refers to her neighbour, Elsie, 
who would invite them round for meals and ask favours of them, in the same terms.  
When she took her maternity leave, and started to see her Brunswick neighbours in 
the street during the day, for the first time, there was much excitement at the 
realisation she was going to have a baby, because, they said, ?we haven?t had a baby 
up here [on the upper floors] for years!?  There is a real sense of Susan?s ambitions to 
put down roots in what she perceives as ?a very close community?, which is paralleled, 
in both a literal and metaphorical sense, by the initiative she has taken in setting up a 
?gardening club? with one of the older, ?original? residents. 
 Susan never speaks of ?empty? spaces at the Brunswick, and is enjoying the 
busyness of the precinct, especially now that she has given up work to look after her 
baby, and regularly meets up, outside the new Starbucks, with the other new mothers 
for whom it provides a meeting-place.  Released from her office day away from the 
Brunswick, her world has become geographically more localised, and simultaneously 
the precinct, which she would not formerly have used that much, has become a more 
attractive and less obviously ?local? place to be, compensating for that loss of daily 
engagement with the wider city.  By contrast, Conal, who works from home, has no 
need or reason to engage with the activities of the precinct during the day apart from 
shopping at Waitrose, and therefore finds it disruptive and disturbing. 
 Susan?s perception of the Brunswick community seems somewhat idealised, 
however, compared to the sentiments offered by some longer-term residents there.  
She is not alone among newcomers to embrace a community ethos, since Lana also 
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relates how she abandoned her home in Notting Hill Gate to mix with more ?ordinary, 
everyday? people at the Brunswick.  Whereas Notting Hill had been taken over by 
?flash cars, flash people?. Sunday supplement people?, the Brunswick represented 
?everyday life.  Such a mixture.?  Whereas Notting Hill was highly defined in 
territorial terms, as ?west London?, Bloomsbury is, to Lana, territorially ?neutral?, 
delightfully undefinable within a partisan geographical hierarchy of London?s 
different areas, but at the same time ?the centre of the universe?, the gateway to a 
network of global social relationships which are embodied for her by the Indian 
family members she used to meet with as a child in this area.  
This apotheosisation of the everyday and the local in the form of the 
Brunswick estate by some of those newcomers who have ready access to other, non-
 local social networks, is embodied in the narrative of one long-term resident, Gloria, 
who is part of a highly ?emplaced? family network going back several generations, 
and has a strong sense of attachment to the local area: ?basically my roots are here, 
and deep are the roots?.  In common with many other first generation residents, she 
was relocated to O?Donnell Court at the Brunswick from her home in a local street 
(Great Ormond Street), along with neighbours and relatives, including her aunt and 
her mother.  She says that ?one thing that Camden [council] ? had the good sense [to 
do]?, was to allocate the new housing so that it was occupied from the outset by ?well, 
a lot of the people you?d known all your life.?  Her three immediate neighbours from 
Great Ormond Street live ?across the landing, and ? up the stairs?, she says, pointing 
to a notion of the Brunswick as a big house (cf 6.1.2), and her aunt lives ?over the 
way? in Foundling Court.   
Nothwithstanding the close presence of friends and relatives,  ?you could live 
here for a year and not see anybody?.  Gloria accepts that as ?the nature of flats?, 
defining neighbours as people who are ?there if you need them?, but not necessarily to 
interact with on a daily basis. They are also there when you don?t particularly want 
them, like her immediate next-door neighbour, whose flat smells so bad it has to be 
cleaned regularly by the council, and whose noisy television has forced Gloria to 
confront him, announcing ?I?m your neighbour? as a declaration of reciprocal 
obligations. 
Ruth, another of the ?original? council tenants to move in, defines neighbours 
as essentially the people who live immediately either side of you, beyond whom her 
social interactions within the Brunswick seem fairly limited, even though she chaired 
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the TRA in its early days. She ?plant-sits? for one of them, who uses his flat pretty 
much as a London pied-a-terre, a not uncommon situation at the Brunswick.  Ruth  
lives in one of the rare end-of-bay maisonettes in Foundling Court, spanning the third 
and fourth floors.  She reveals that originally there was an idea to put a second front 
door in on the upper floor.  She says she likes the idea that ?you?d have neighbours up 
there as well?,  the implication being that neighbours are defined horizontally rather 
than vertically, in direct relationship to the main entrance and exit point of the home.  
Her comment suggests there is little vertical social interaction, ie between floors, at 
the Brunswick.  
Although retired, Ruth has a busy life outside the Brunswick as a proactive 
member of various activist groups and campaigns, and therefore does not need to feel 
part of a ?community? within the Brunswick.  When she says ?we?re such a good 
community? her reference is to members of the wider local community who got 
involved with the campaign to save the Post Office in Marchmont Street.  Her social 
life ?is tied up with the film shows [organised at the Renoir cinema in the precinct by 
the London Film Co-Op, of which she is Membership Secretary] and book stall?, held 
to raise funds for the Socialist Worker Morning Star at the local Neighbourhood 
Association, where she sits on the management committee (formerly as chairman). 
When her daughter was a child she was also active in campaigning for the local 
nursery and childcare provision.  As a result, she is well-known locally, and 
occasionally hosts meetings of fellow committee members and campaigners in her 
flat.  But her best friend is a Costa Rican woman who now lives in Mexico, while her 
interactions with her female flatmate are dismissed in the words ?we pass each other 
fleetingly?.  She seems to be unaware of recent initiatives to improve the Brunswick 
taken by ?newcomers? on the TA, although she does attend TA meetings, and made 
some efforts independently to organise transport for the elderly and infirm after the 
supermarket in the precinct closed, forcing residents to do their grocery shopping 
elsewhere.  
Ruth?s outlook is essentially framed by global political agendas, and she has 
recently visited Palestine as part of a consciousness-raising initiative, even though she 
also engages with the issues that concern her at a geographically local level.  When 
another resident, Stephanie, complains that the Brunswick is ?the most unfriendly 
place I?ve ever lived?, it reflects the fact that many residents have less interest in 
engaging with the immediate context of neighbours and fellow inhabitants than in 
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their personal social interests and contacts beyond the Brunswick, except when the 
debate around the future of the building itself refocuses their attention. The atrium 
space is empty, because residents are having their conversations with other people 
elsewhere.  But Stephanie, who ?used to be involved with community things, but I 
can?t cope with them any more? (due to illness), believes it is because the design 
militates against social interaction in the public spaces.  Conversations resonate 
throughout the A-frame, and it is impossible to walk two abreast on the walkways 
because they are too narrow.  The terraces have been abandoned as a social arena, 
because of complaints about noise and fears of their misuse.   
Like Ruth, Stephanie is also a single mother her brought up her daughter at the 
Brunswick, and was involved with campaigns to save a nursery (not the same one).   
This led to a friendship with another Brunswick mother who worked there.  Stephanie 
also ran the TA during the 90s, but she doesn?t seem to have good friends at the 
Brunswick, while her contacts with the social world beyond it seem to be conducted 
largely by email.  She says she misses the ?gossip opportunities? provided by the old 
supermarket, but the implication is that she prefers to skim the surface of social 
relations rather than engage too deeply in them. 
Stephanie describes Brunswick residents as ?just ordinary people?, who feel 
?repressed by the building?.  But whereas Lana and other newcomers such as Annie 
and Anthony, who have extensive social networks in the city beyond, and have come 
to the Brunswick specifically to find  a ?local community?, seem to equate ?ordinary? 
with ?interesting?, Stephanie (who was rehoused here by the council) criticises the 
majority as ?ignorant?, and ?xenophobic?.  She highlights the fact that she is not one of 
those, despite also being a council tenant, by mentioning that ?it?s surprising the 
number of people with degrees on the estate?, including herself.  Her reference to the 
place as an ?estate?, which is quite rare at the Brunswick, helps to evoke the territorial, 
?xenophobic? image of the place that she conjures up.  According to her, most 
Brunswick residents would never venture north of the Euston Road - and, conversely, 
the Brunswick is ?one area George [her ex-boyfriend] wouldn?t go?, since he lives in 
the north of the borough, which means that Stephanie is safe here.  But Stephanie 
suggests that Brunswick residents? ?xenophobia? even extends to seeing their estate as 
fundamentally superior to surrounding local housing estates, despite its chronic 
maintenance problems and rundown appearance.  By contrast, accounts such as 
Gloria?s, which stress the beauty, history, and ?upmarket? character of the local area, 
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highlight a sense of pride on the part of long-established locals in their neighbourhood 
generally, rather than suggesting any real xenophobia, and Stephanie?s accusation 
against them may perhaps reflect her own feelings of isolation from the city at large, 
especially when so many other residents stress the advantages of living at the 
Brunswick in terms of its proximity to the attractions and amenities of central 
London: ?on top of everything?, as one first-generation council tenant puts it.   
 
4.1.3 perceptions of difference 
The concept of some kind of social hierarchy within the Brunswick itself is hinted at 
by many residents, but less in terms of the educational qualifications which mean so 
much to Stephanie, or even of ownership v. council tenancy, than of simple longevity 
of residence: a temporal rather than spatial dimension.  Even the educated Stephanie 
has fallen prey to this sense of precedence.  Having been resident there 18 years 
herself, she is indignant that a disabled woman tenant who regularly criticises the 
leaseholders has ?only been here about 5 years - you?d think she?d been here for 
ever!?   
And again, the otherwise globally-minded activist, Ruth, who has refused to 
buy her flat from the council for ethical and political reasons, states with quiet 
certainty and pride that she was ?one of the first to move in [in 1971]? this corner of 
the estate was the first bit to be finished?.  June, who was relocated to O?Donnell 
Court when it opened from housing in Coram Street that was under refurbishment, 
and has since bought her flat at the council tenants? discount, expresses a sense of 
deliberate detachment from the ?newcomers?: ?I know who Conal is vaguely, but I 
couldn?t identify him out of two or three people who I think may be Conal?.  She 
makes a clear distinction between herself and ?people buying into the Brunswick as a 
proper purchase?, saying that ?the choice they made was very, very different from 
mine?, and therefore they have ?a different concept of their flat within the Brunswick 
from me, because I just came as a tenant who had a transfer?.  While she also used to 
be involved with the TA, and the early campaigns to save the Brunswick from 
redevelopment, she seems to have withdrawn as a result of those new and ?different? 
people making their presence felt, and she is somewhat disparaging about what she 
perceives as their lack of knowledge about the estate: ?the people who have taken 
charge now are on the whole not people who know much about the history of the 
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estate?. Sometimes I try and put them in the picture but I don?t think they appreciate 
it.? 
For June, and others, it is a lack of knowledge and experience that essentially 
differentiates the newcomers from the old-timers, rather than better education  or 
greater affluence ? although the ?choice? which that has enabled also leads to a 
different kind of attitude towards the way the new people inhabit the flats.  She 
bought her flat simply because she thinks it would have been stupid not to, given the 
very low price, although she didn?t really approve of the right-to-buy legislation (cf 
1.4.1).  Non-buyers like Ruth, and Kevin the caretaker, have been loyal to their 
political ideals but Kevin sometimes sharply regrets it ? ?if I?d have projected 20 
years on, think, this is my passport back to Ireland? I lie awake for a couple of 
nights!?.  By contrast, other first-generation council tenants were persuaded to buy at 
the large discount offered, essentially with their children?s futures in mind.  As 
Lorraine puts it, they bought ?for when we get old and grey, if we want to sell we?ve 
got the money in the bank? the two boys they can do what they want with the flat?.  
Gloria?s only daughter has become an extremely successful stand-up comedian and is 
unlikely to need the flat or the money in future, but Gloria still likes to think that she 
will appreciate the legacy out of sentimental attachment to her childhood home - her 
?roots?, in Gloria?s words.   
Gloria believes the newcomers are a good thing because they have knowledge 
of a different kind ? not local knowledge, but ?expertise? in specialist fields, 
especially architecture and engineering, which they can bring in from outside to bear 
on internal Brunswick issues.  Furthermore they ?work hard? on the Brunswick?s 
behalf.  But ultimately she disagrees with them as to what should be done at the 
Brunswick, and she won?t bow to the new hegemony of taste which is threatened by 
their increasing influence.  Lorraine, too,  is conscious of a difference  of ?taste? 
between her and the newcomers, though she can?t quite define it: ?a lot of the people 
who?ve bought flats are sort of ? more intelligent, no, what?s the word, la-di-da to 
me? very nice people? they?ve started taking over, and of course they do more, they 
know what they?re talking about??.  While she has also bought her flat, she draws a 
clear distinction between the incomers and old-timers like herself, who ?feel like 
we?re part of the survivors?.  From her point of view, social changes at the Brunswick 
have made her feel less at home in a place where she, like Gloria, knew many of her 
neighbours when she moved in as a newly-married, pregnant young woman who had 
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grown up nearby.  For her, the answer might be to move out, right out of London, but 
she doesn?t know if she could do it, because: ?I?ve lived round here all my life.?  
However, the social stratification of the Brunswick is perceived more in terms of 
different ?cliques?, or ?circles?, than as a defined hierarchy, based on education, taste, 
or wealth, and these cliques are largely understood in terms of their connections to the 
city beyond the housing blocks. Stephanie describes the ?young professionals? who 
have a certain ?level of education and aesthetic sense?, and are starting families at the 
Brunswick, as having ?their own clique? which becomes visible in the context of the 
Coram?s Fields..  The children?s playground constitutes a stage on which the social 
dynamics of the local area, including the Brunswick, are manifested in easily-read 
groupings of families who use the park at different times and in different ways.  
One of these ?young professionals? refers to ?mums that knew each other from 
the park? in relation to a different set from her own, and elaborates: ?I don?t think you 
can talk about a single community at all here [at the Brunswick]?. There are a lot of 
different circles and groups here.?  Lorraine suggests a key distinction is ethnic, 
between white families and Indian families, who stay away from the playground until 
the evening, after the white families have gone home.  She says the problem is that the 
Indians ?didn?t want to mix with our children?, not the other way around.  Then there 
is the class distinction between the young professionals and the so-called ?Holborn 
mafia? ? working-class white families from the area around Lambs Conduit Street 
who formerly had a strong representation within the upper floors of Foundling Court, 
and made their presence felt, as Stephanie recalls: ?Mari had a party for her 
daughter?s 18th, and the Holborn mafia on the 5th and 6th floors were screaming and 
shouting, banging on the door, making more noise than the party?.? But there also 
territorial distinctions within the local working-class white community: Stephanie 
describes another occasion when ?Maggie across the way? died, and streams of 
?Covent Garden? people came up to the flat.  She underlines the class dimension of 
social dynamics here, in her comment that  ?working-class people? will save up their 
whole lives for funerals organised on this scale,  ideally with a horse-drawn glass 
hearse, with the intention that ?the whole neighbourhood will hear about it?.  
These kinds of local allegiances connect different groups within the 
Brunswick to specific areas of the city, but others almost deliberately avoid local 
attachment in favour of a more global social sweep.  Gloria loves to be recognised and 
acknowledged ? ?it?s nice to recognise someone when you walk out? or be 
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recognised? It?s one of the most important things in life to be acknowledged? ? but 
Kevin, partly because of the nature of his job, jealously guards his anonymity, and 
avoids going to local pubs where he might be accosted by tenants wanting to talk 
about ?work? matters.  For him, Ireland, his place of birth, is a place where ?it just 
seems easy to slip into friendships?, whereas his home at the Brunswick is essentially 
a place of work where it is important to retain a certain detachment.  June will spend 
many weekends visiting friends who are scattered around the country.  While she has 
one good friend living ?up the road?, with whom she goes to the theatre, she says she 
is ?friendly with? people at the Brunswick, but has nobody she would count as a ?real? 
friend because they do not share her interest in theatre.  She is emphatic that she 
conceptualises her ?home? as being in ?central London?, where the theatres and 
galleries are situated, and not at the Brunswick per se.  
Giulia is an elderly Italian lady who has lived at the Brunswick for 18 years, 
since her retirement as a nursing auxiliary, and she also values highly the proximity of 
her flat to the cultural attractions of central London.  She was ?enchanted? by the 
accessibility of culture and education in London, compared to her home town in Italy. 
Although she has had many social relationships within Foundling Court, and has been 
friendly with some of her fellow immigrant neighbours, including Italians and Poles, 
they are not the main focus of her social existence.  She gives the impression that, 
despite their shared cultural roots, she stands apart from her Italian neighbours 
because of her Communist leanings which constitute a more significant cultural 
difference.  She likes to chat to many different kinds of people locally, especially 
through the local churches, and join in with day trips organised by a local centre for 
the elderly.  The advantage of living at the Brunswick, for some, is that it facilitates 
these kind of social interactions, without forcing a person to get more deeply involved 
with local neighbours and their differences of background and outlook. 
Similarly, Lynn and June enjoy looking down at people walking through the 
precinct (a pleasure taken away by the construction of the new canopies) ? because 
?the view humanises us?, as Lynn puts it.  But at the same time they can keep their 
distance. Lynn prefers to put her energies into visits to Palestine and learning Arabic, 
while considering whether it would suit her better to move to a quieter location.  Her 
21-year old son has recently moved out of the flat, and she finds his sense of 
emotional detachment from it impressive: he keeps reminding her that ?it?s just bricks 
and mortar?.   Annie and Anthony also maintain a slightly detached view of their 
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fellow residents at the Brunswick, which they describe objectively as ?a mixed 
community that has interesting people?.  They invest their real energies in a social 
network made up of like-minded people, several of whom have bought into other 
architecturally-interesting council estates, which forms another kind of community 
transcending territorial boundaries. Their sense of connectedness at the Brunswick is 
perhaps stronger in relation to the building itself, evaluated in architectural terms, than 
with the people who inhabit it. 
But these different kinds of social worlds, whether locally focussed or more 
widely extended, provide a common sense of ?emplacement? that distinguishes both 
long-term and more recent inhabitants from those Brunswick tenants who are ?put in 
by the council?, people ?from outside London?, who are given priority on the housing 
list because they would otherwise be homeless.  They may be economic immigrants, 
refugees, recently-released ?offenders?, alchoholics, drug addicts or suffering from 
illness that entitles them to sheltered housing provision.  They are perceived as 
floating, disconnected, and potentially troublesome ? a world apart, or perhaps, ?in-
 between? - precisely because they do not have the kind of social networks that connect 
other residents to the city beyond their homes and that give them a sense of positive 
social identity.  These people, whose behaviour may be erratic and disruptive, even 
aggressive, generate a sense of fear and insecurity amongst their fellow residents, 
because they represent a potential threat to the integrity of the threshold between 
home and public space, inside and outside, and ultimately a threat to the integrity of 
?home? itself, in the broadest sense.   
Lorraine indicates a direct correlation between people who don?t belong, and 
their transgressive behaviour in the physical environment, complaining that ?the 
Indians?, who don?t come to meetings and can?t speak English, also leave their 
rubbish in the corridors, and presumably their flats in a mess: ?Imagine what their 
houses must be like!?  Lana?s disabled partner James lived next door to a violent, 
mentally-ill tenant who confronted him, gained entry to his flat and beat him up.  She 
found it frightening to discover that, while the council?s integrating policies in terms 
of providing accommodation and support for individuals on the margins of society 
were impressive, they seemed to evaporate when it came to dealing with deviant 
behaviour which threatened the very existence of a harmonious and integrated 
community.  According to Kevin, the caretaker, there are people ?with binoculars and 
whatnot? at the Brunswick, whose apparent social ?disemplacement? has led them to 
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indulge in inappropriate behaviour from behind net curtains, transgressing the 
boundaries of their own domains within the larger framework.  
Kevin is fully in favour of the newly-introduced ASBO (Anti-Social 
Behaviour Order) system, which he believes has contributed to a significant 
improvement in what was a ?tough environment?.  It effectively enshrines a concept of 
the ?anti-social?, summing up anyone who can be identified as failing to fit in, in the 
sense of maintaining an orderly, decent home life and visible, functional social 
relationships extending beyond it.  Ultimately the different cliques and circles at the 
Brunswick are united in their common difference from the displaced persons and 
loners who come and go, but one of the characteristics of the Brunswick is that it can 
offer those people a certain anonymity.  As Susan says, speaking of her personal 
inclination to embrace outsiders, specifically refugees, as part of the community she 
dreams of at the Brunswick: ?I really want them to know how welcome they are here, 
but you don?t know how to meet them?you can?t really tell who they are?.  This 
ambiguity in itself may account for a heightened concern about security, maintaining 
clear boundaries, and a preference for an empty atrium space.   
 
4.2 Segmentation-integration and ?boundary-work? 
The ambiguity that persists in identifying people as insiders or outsiders, due to the 
still accessible structure of the internal public spaces and the large number of flats, is 
mirrored in the ambiguity between inside and outside which is manifested in the 
interior of the housing blocks ? in the common parts which lead to the ?inner 
sanctum? of each individual flat (cf description 1.4.2). The circulation areas were 
designed to have an external quality, to be an extension of the street below, and not 
domestic in character.  But at the same time, the reduced scale of the front doorways 
to the flats, and the small and secretive appearance of the kitchen and bathroom 
windows which look onto the ?street? do not present a public face to the flats within.  
Significantly, Susan describes herself ?creeping around? the access galleries which 
cling to the sides of the atrium, during her hunt for a flat to buy at the Brunswick, not 
the way one would describe walking down a conventional street. 
 The residents use different metaphors to describe this inside/outside space, but 
above all, it is ?unfinished?.  As Stephanie says, ?the painting issue is a big one with 
people who have lived here a long time.?  She says it?s not just the spalling, the 
disrepair of the concrete which is the problem, but the material itself, because it is 
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cold, and needs to be covered up.  She implies there is a desire to internalise, or 
domesticate, the circulation spaces of the Brunswick through decoration, and she fully 
supports those people who have taken the initiative and painted their own sections of 
fa?ade, even though it is against estate regulations, which are sometimes enforced.  
She finds it outragious that a ?nasty bossy estate manager? ordered one resident to 
remove some terracotta red paintwork around a front door because it was deemed to 
be the wrong colour. 
 But the front doors themselves are the domain of residents, at least those 
residents who have become leaseholders, and many of those have been proactive in 
replacing or repainting their front doors, and adding new door furniture. Some people 
have also attached a secondary metal gate, either for increased security, or to allow 
the front door to be left open for reasons of light and ventilation.  These kind of 
measures personalise and give more presence to the mass-produced doors of the 
council housing scheme, and clearly mark the threshold between exterior and interior, 
public and private.  
 When the Chairman and Secretary of the TRA organised the painting of each 
ground floor entrance hall to be painted a different colour, it was to enhance residents? 
identification with their own particular street entrance, help break up the sense of 
homogenous, perspectival linearity to the block, and provide greater demarcation of 
interior from exterior (insiders from outsiders) at street level. The secretary explains 
that he put up a number of colour swabs on the wall in each entrance, but that only a 
few residents turned up to tick the colour they preferred. It seems apparent that 
collective decision-making processes in the ?personalisation? or domestication of the 
blocks have less impact on occupants? awareness of their surroundings and 
relationships with each other than individual cognition systems built around existing 
landmarks in the social zone of the street beyond, and smaller, personal details 
focussed immediately around the entrance to each dwelling.    
 For most residents, the painting of the hallways is an insignificant contribution 
to their sense of wellbeing inside the housing blocks, when what they really want is 
for the entire interior to be painted, as the exterior has been.  While the street frontage 
of the Brunswick now looks smart and cared-for, the interior looks neglected and in a 
bad state of repair ? a kind of non-space between the public realm and private, 
domestic space.  Many residents place great emphasis on the importance of estate 
rules and regulations, as a means of regulating and controlling this slippery, 
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ambiguous, threatening space in the only other way possible. Bob, a retired man in his 
70s, who has lived in his flat, as a council tenant turned leaseholder, with his sister 
and formerly his mother for some 20 years, thinks the council should be much more 
rigorous in setting out and enforcing restrictions properly.  He has a friend who lives 
on an estate in Teddington where leaseholders are presented with a set of 12 clear 
rules on moving in, which they must abide by.  The friend resents the constraints they 
represent, but Bob says it?s exactly what the Brunswick needs: ?The trouble with 
Camden ? instead of jumping in straight away and saying look, you?ve been told you 
do not do that, they sit around? That is not to my way of thinking, not the way of 
doing things.?  Bob firmly believes that individuals should not be allowed to decorate 
their own bit of external fa?ade however they want to, or put up lights, or hang out 
washing to dry where it is visible from the street.  Those kind of freedoms represent, 
to Bob, processes of individual segmentation which eat away at already weakened 
community integration on the estate.  As he says, it?s ?a very mixed community, like 
everywhere else I suppose?, with many flats sublet on a fairly short-term basis, 
contributing to a greater transience, and for that very reason there needs to be a clear 
code of behaviour to hold the place together. 
 Bob?s concern for control and order in the management of the housing blocks 
is echoed by Lorraine, in her complaints about the behaviour of ?the Indians?.  She is 
anxious for residents to integrate and join in, and her sense of order and cohesion is 
threatened when they don?t.  Her standards of order, cleanliness and cooperationserve 
to reinforce local loyalties so intense that she classes the whole of O?Donnell Court 
(the ?other? block) as ?a bit grubby?, and its inhabitants  ?not as friendly?.  Gloria, who 
is in fact an O?Donnell Court resident with equally high standards of domestic 
management, also hates it when they are threatened by any kind of ambiguity ? when 
things are not ?made concrete?, when ?nothing?s set in stone?, as she puts it.  This is 
the essence of the crime committed by the developer of the Brunswick, which 
fundamentally threatens its integrity. She is also irate at the expenditure of ?15,000 on 
the Groundworks-sponsored ?terraces project?, a scheme for new planting (?old 
cabbage plants?) in boxes on the terraces which effectively rode rough-shod over the 
the principle supported by many Brunswick residents, that any occupation of the 
terrace space was a transgression of residents? privacy. She is morally offended by 
this project, denouncing it as ?a waste?, ?disgusting?, and ?wicked?, in tones more 
commonly used to describe examples of the blatant social deviance (including 
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prostitutes with clients in the rubbish shutes, addicts shooting up in dark corners on 
the walkways) which has occurred at the Brunswick. 
 There is a strong desire for effective systems of managerial control and order 
to provide an integrating force at the Brunswick, and a corresponding fear that the 
inability or failure of some residents to maintain their own domestic space properly 
may threaten the integrity of the whole public realm ? private disorder seeping out 
across the boundaries to contaminate the common spaces.   Conversely, the order and 
integrity of the public domain may be supported by the maintenance of rigorous 
domestic standards by responsible residents.  Gloria?s flat (in ?grubby? O?Donnell 
Court) is a set-piece of traditional Edwardian d?cor and furnishing, in which she has 
invested a good deal of thought and effort.  Her first thought on seeing the living-
 room was that ?you could certainly express yourself in a room this size, if you couldn?t 
there?s something wrong with you??  She set out to turn the flat into an expression of 
her personal aesthetic (and moral) values, corresponding with her conviction that the 
Brunswick as a whole ?should have been a showpiece? ? if only it had been properly 
finished.  Gloria?s living-room, complete with grand floral displays from her own 
shop, effectively represents the ordered and polished showpiece, constructed within 
her own private space,  that she would like the exterior of the Brunswick to be.  She is 
distressed by its incomplete state, when you could do ?a million things? with its 
exterior profile, fountains, lights and mirrors, in effect ?the instantaneous show? that 
she creates on her own balcony with ?hanging baskets, the lot?.  Thus Gloria attempts 
to address and compensate for the incomplete and dilapidated state of the exterior by 
investing a good deal of effort where she is able to, in the orderly presentation of her 
own flat. 
 The same concern to assert values of order, respectability, and, particularly 
functionality, within the interior of their own flat is evidenced at Bob and Jean?s 
address, in Foundling Court. Bob has done a lot of work on the flat focussed around 
technical issues ? heating and ventilation, plumbing, adapting the flat to meet Joan?s 
needs now that she has become much less mobile.  He knows exactly how everything 
works, and he thinks the council should provide a proper induction for people moving 
in so that everyone understands the heating, plumbing, and wiring as he does.  As it is 
he provides help and advice in an informal capacity to residents struggling with these 
aspects of their flats, and he is formally involved in discussions with the council 
around the proposed replacement of the heating system, as well as being chairman of 
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a newly-formed Leaseholders? Association on the estate.  However, the flat he shares 
with Jean is not only well-maintained and efficient in a technical sense, but also 
reveals a level of careful aesthetic control.  This, says Bob, is Jean?s domain: ?I?m just 
the labourer.  The colour scheme, I leave that to her, I just do what she wants.?  But it 
is not quite true.  It was Bob?s decision to make an archway over the opening to the 
kitchen - ?I said to [the carpenter], I want something to shape this?.? - and it was he 
was so determined to install an ornamental gas fireplace, against Jean?s wishes, that 
he had it done while she was in hospital recovering from an operation.  As he says, 
?I?m old-fashioned and I think fireplaces make the central, make the room?: a 
fireplace is the proper thing to have. 
 Bob and Jean?s flat has an old-fashioned formality and ?properness? to it, 
where good quality, rather than economy, is a value to be upheld. The wallpaper was 
?very, very expensive.  Italian paper [from Selfridges].  I thought it would probably 
last a long time, and it has.?  It is a priority for them to do things properly, and not cut 
corners, just as it should be, but isn?t, in the management and maintenance of the 
Brunswick as a whole.  But maintaining an image of order and carefully controlled 
boundaries within their own space enables Bob and Jean to feel more in control of 
their existence within the larger framework. 
 By contrast, Ruth?s flat is an example of pervasive disorder ? at least to the 
outsider, who does not understand the filing system represented by the piles of paper 
around her all-purpose living-room.  Parked outside her front door is a displaced 
supermarket trolley, and the living-room, which serves as office and bedroom as well,  
is full of furniture and objects and piles of paper, which embody different aspects of 
her life.  While she herself understands the basic structure, she is concerned that the 
situation is getting out of control: ?It?s something that has really got on top of me and 
I find it very hard to do the job of clearing up ?.?  Various artefacts on a high shelf 
are ?so covered in dust? that she can hardly recognise them, and she was thrilled when 
her daughter and her partner recently came to clear and clean the flat for her: ?Terrific 
job.?  But unlike Bob and Jean, order and cleanliness do not represent absolute values 
in themselves, and she is happy to accept a level of apparent disorder if it allows her 
to accommodate all the different aspects of her social identity within her domestic 
space: ?I was just looking everywhere where I could put storage space?, she says of 
her decision to fill the WC with her father?s old books.  But at the same time she 
maintains a concern for respecting certain fundamental hygienic boundaries: for 
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instance, she hates the location of the washing-machine in the kitchen, because she 
thinks it is wrong to mix dirty washing with food and food preparation. 
 Ruth?s attitude towards her own flat is paralleled by an apparent lack of 
concern about the superficial look of the external areas beyond her front door. She 
never refers to the physical context of the Brunswick per se; her interest in it is, she 
says, more about how it works in a ?social sense.  Having the warden system?. The 
good heating system?.  However, her concern about the observation of fundamental 
boundaries is reflected in the anxieties she expresses over the unregulated, antisocial 
behaviour she has witnessed in the underground residents? carpark, which led her to 
stop keeping her car there and use street parking instead: ?really it was quite 
frightening?. 
 Like Ruth, June is concerned about her increasing inability to control 
paperwork in her flat, but admits to fairly relaxed values regarding cleaning.  
?Depends what your standards are doesn?t it? I mean I aim and this isn?t what I 
always do, but I aim to do the flat reasonably thoroughly once a month? that?s OK 
for me. But other people might have different standards?.  But her flat is much more 
orderly and organised than Ruth?s, and she is quite fastidious, both about shedding 
possessions she no longer needs or wants, and about maintaining a hierarchy of distint 
spaces, whereby her paperwork and computer are not allowed to encroach on the 
living-room, and things that she doesn?t want on public display are relegated to the 
bedroom.  She is also quite scrupulous about maintaining boundaries between herself 
and her lodger ? for instance, she has installed a fridge in the lodger?s room, to ensure 
their provisions, like their lives, remain clearly ?segmented?.  But, conversely, the 
boundaries between herself and her cat have become quite ambiguous, with the cat 
sleeping on her bed as a matter of course, and even being fed in her bedroom: in 
contrast to the lodger, the cat is integrated into June?s highly-controlled sphere of 
intimacy. 
 June?s relationship with the larger framework of the Brunswick, and what goes 
on there, reflects her desire to establish clear boundaries.  Although she has been 
involved in the campaigns against redevelopment, she seems to have withdrawn from 
those activities.  She admits that when she moved in she thought it was an 
?interesting? building, but insists that now ?it?s not living in the Brunswick, it?s living 
in central London? which is meaningful to her.  She maintains a detached attitude to 
the building beyond her flat, and also to her fellow inhabitants.   While she thinks 
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?they see me as someone who?s quite helpful and positive?, she has very little to say 
about anybody else: ?they?re all very pleasant people? harmless and pleasant?, 
except for one who ?annoys me a bit?.  Significantly, she says she would never have 
net curtains,  because she hates the idea that people might imagine her to be peeping 
out from behind them.   Her attitude seems to express a perception of the window less 
as an interface between people, but rather as a neutral but clear boundary instead. 
Similarly, she defines her home not in terms of neighbourly relations, but rather as the 
place ?where your familiar objects are, your lares and penates? , and once she steps 
out of her front door the common parts of the Brunswick seem to blur into the public 
spaces of the city beyond with little distinction.  She seems scarcely to notice the 
people who live around her, and entertains little anxiety about the security of the 
common parts.  In fact her only fears in that respect concerned a member of her own 
family who had been going through a difficult period, and who she felt might try to 
break in to her flat at some point.  It was to protect herself from that possibility, and 
also to allay the fears of a nervous lodger, that she had bars installed on her kitchen 
and bathroom windows.   
If Ruth and June seem relaxed about order and cleanliness within the home, 
and correspondingly so about order in the public domain of the Brunswick, at least to 
a certain point, others, such as Kevin and Giulia, seem to employ rigorous cleaning 
routines as a means of asserting a clear zone of autonomy and control within their 
flats, and a sense of segmentation between their lives ?inside? and ?outside?.  Kevin, 
whose role as caretaker obliges him to engage with the Brunswick beyond his front 
door, is adamant that the threshold to his flat is not to be crossed by anybody seeking 
him out in relation to ?work? issues.   When he is in his kitchen on his lunch break, he 
keeps the light off so that nobody will realise he is at home, and he has a screen 
against his kitchen window to prevent anybody looking in.  When people do knock at 
the front door, he will only invite them in if they are friends, and he is very aware of 
them peering over his shoulder to see what they can of his entrance hall ? for which 
reason he keeps his wine out of sight under his bed.  Even when he sits out on his 
balcony, people will sometimes shout up to him from the precinct, so he screens 
himself from view with his plants.  ?It?s not that I want to hide all the time, it?s just 
that people do get nosy?. There are boundaries?, he explains.  ?People come to door, 
tenants, and they?re just trying to come in.  They?re not my friends??  When friends 
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on the estate come round, ?they come in.  That?s not a problem.?  But, ?if they talk 
about work I say? I?m putting you out.?   
 Kevin?s adamant stance regarding the sanctity of his threshold is paralleled by 
his thorough and professional attitude towards cleaning and maintaining the flat. He 
spent a lot of time cleaning it out and decorating before he moved in, and since then 
he has got into a routine of redecorating every 3 years.  He?ll take ?a week off work to 
paint this room, wash and rub down and move everything around?, even though he 
finds it ?grindingly boring?.  He cleans and paints his windows regularly, and when 
the outsides get done by Camden?s contractors he insists they change the water when 
they get to his flat.  He hates the untidiness of his teenage son?s bedroom, so he?ll 
regularly tidy it himself.  He has also just invested ?50 in new plants for the balcony, 
and would also like to install lights and a stand-up heater out there.   
 In a similar way, Giulia, who is now 82 years old and suffered a heart attack a 
few years ago, still insists on cleaning her own flat from top to bottom.  One of her 
main points about her ?beautiful? flat is that, because it is quite large, ?there is plenty 
for me to clean.?  She washes and polishes the floor regularly herself, and still 
manages to turn the mattress on her bed every week.  Her flat has the clean, hygienic, 
and slightly spartan appearance of the hospitals where she used to work, and cleaning 
is clearly part of her raison d?etre, and a means of appropriating and possessing the 
space she has lived in since her retirement as her own, even though it is actually 
owned by the council. 
 Giulia has various social relationships within the building, and throughout her 
life has been outgoing and interested in other people,  but she has become nervous and 
fearful of intruders since many of the elderly people she knows at the Brunswick have 
been robbed ? ?all elderly?, and including four people on this floor alone.  As a result 
she no longer leaves her kitchen window open, and she is quite happy that the 
entryphone system is not working, since it makes it harder for people to enter through 
the street door.  She used to let in the Jehovah?s Witnesses, and engage in 
conversation with them, but she no longer welcomes their visits. The District Nurse 
no longer visits, and she won?t accept a meals service, preferring to make herself a 
sandwich, so that her flat has become increasingly impermeable to the outside world.  
This sense of segmentation is eloquently expressed in the way that her easy chair is 
turned with its back towards the window, facing the TV which, by contrast, faces 
outwards: it seems as though the TV is in communication with the outside world, 
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while she has turned away from it to dwell on her own things.  Hanging on the back 
of the front door is her coat and bag: her outside self, as it were, framed within the 
interior of the flat as an alter ego, a persona to be assumed when she goes outdoors, 
and left at the threshold when she comes in, not integrated into her home life. 
 Giulia seems to have drawn the boundaries around her flat ever more closely 
since the refurbishment programme at the Brunswick started, and she is very unhappy 
about what is happening outside.  She feels the Brunswick is being changed for ever 
in ways she strongly dislikes, and by the time of my third visit to her she had taken to 
keeping the curtains closed across her windows, to block out the view of the changes 
she hates.  Although she was still venturing out onto her balcony to talk to her bizzy-
 lizzies, she seemed to have become increasingly absorbed in her own world, and 
distressed by the fact that, although she could block out views of the exterior, she 
could not keep out the noise of the building work.  ?If it?s noisy you can only 
communicate with the devil?, she said, making it clear that her former delight in living 
at the Brunswick had been utterly destroyed.  When I visited her for the last time, to 
take her a copy of my book, she simply closed her front door on me, saying that she 
did not care about the Brunswick any more, and did not want the book.  It seemed that 
her retreat into her private domain had become irreversible, a sad development for 
someone who used to enjoy sitting out in the precinct chatting with friends. 
 The capacity of the Brunswick flats to provide residents with a zone of 
complete autonomy within the overall framework, is one of the aspects of Brunswick 
living which Lana celebrates.  She tells me that the neutrality of their design, 
combined with perfect proportions, and good acoustic privacy, allow their inhabitants 
to turn them into completely distinct, independent worlds shaped by their own desires 
and without any reference to the larger context.  This may be interpreted less as a 
process of appropriation, or sublation, of an alien living environment (see 1.1.2), but 
as a response to the inherent potential of the design ? a built-in freedom which it 
offers individuals to create their own, segmented, worlds within its framework. 
According to Lana, it didn?t matter that outside, in the so-called ?internal streets in the 
air? of a ?crumbling building, stained and cracked?, people were ?spitting and lying 
around and making rubbish?.  She says that ?what interested me was that everyone 
who came into these places with exactly the same proportions, could have set up a 
dream space?.  She says that for many people, including herself, ?their flat is their 
internal life?, intended not so much to project a statement about how they want to be 
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seen into the public domain, but rather, as in her case, ?to make a statement about how 
I use it? within a private and exclusive sphere of existence. Lana ?wouldn?t want 
anybody to look into my space?: rather, she maintains a clear threshold which is not to 
be casually crossed or opened up to the public gaze. 
 But intriguingly, Lana has turned her dark entrance hall into a kind of museum 
of ?found objects? salvaged from the public spaces of the Brunswick, which she has 
painted in a uniform coat of terracotta paint and placed on display alongside her 
piano:  ?People turf them out? So they become part of the hall?.  Notwithstanding her 
expressed concern for privacy, this activity, which reflects her artist?s reflective 
sensibility, embodies an integrating impulse, and creates an explicitly liminal zone 
between the public access gallery and the most private areas of the flat where objects 
originating in other people?s spaces are recontextualised in Lana?s flat, after a short 
sojourn in the public domain. 
Few residents are so self-aware as this in their negotiation of the boundaries 
between exterior and interior, but Rob, who is an engineer by profession, and 
Chairman of the TRA for the last 5 years, also has a heightened self-awareness of his 
desire to ?control? the interior of his own flat.  When I first met Rob and his girlfriend, 
Francoise, she in particular was quite critical of their neighbours at the Brunswick as 
being people who were ?unable to take control and make decisions for themselves.?  
Their attitude to their flat seemed a conscious initiative to demonstrate their own 
distinctness from their neighbours in this (and other) respects. Both Rob and 
Francoise deliberately made themselves visible as newcomers at the Brunswick by 
getting involved in the TRA committee and various projects to enhance the public 
profile of the building and generate improvements, but although they have become 
quite well-known to other residents, they have not exactly integrated, and their  flat 
reflects this desire to establish ?segmentation?.  I understand it to be one of the two 
flats Gloria describes as looking like ?glorified offices? there?s no semblance of a 
home?, implying an inappropriate functionality and a lack of domestic ?warmth?.  Rob 
admits that he likes to feel in control -  ?I sort of miss being challenged [on visits to 
Paris] by having to not be in control of things, it?s a bit too ordered perhaps?  - and 
that the flat he shared with Francoise reflected that need:  comfortable, but 
?deliberately flat? pretty functional? very calming? relaxing? peaceful? not sort 
of cosy like some flats are.?  It was mostly painted white, and they both liked the ?idea 
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of just keeping the walls clear? we were both happy to have it as a blank canvas.  A 
blank surface.?    
In fact, Rob had an interest at one point in hanging some photographs he had 
taken of wild flowers blooming in the wilderness of the terraces prior to 
refurbishment, but Francoise apparently vetoed this, adamant that she did not want 
images of the exterior of the building invading their closely guarded interior space: a 
blurring of boundaries between their smart interior and the shabby exterior, between 
themselves and ?the others?, which threatened an undesirable ?integration?. Even 
though the Brunswick, as an architectural ?icon?, was very much a shared passion 
which had been central to their relationship since moving there, ?She didn?t want them 
on the wall, because she said you can look outside and see.? 
 Having split with Francoise, Rob has a new girlfriend, with significant 
implications for the flat.  Amanda, who is Hong Kong Chinese, is oblivious to the 
virtues of the Brunswick as an architectural icon, and sees it as just another council 
estate, not that dissimilar from the one she is living on with her aunt. Like Gloria, she 
has criticised the flat because ?it looks so much like an office? normally in a home 
you?d have curtains.? Rob still maintains ?I quite like the clean lines?, but, in 
welcoming a new partner into the flat, he has also taken a deliberate decision to try 
and relax his controlling impulses a little, and that means opening up to new 
influences from outside.  He is partly embarrassed by the penetration of his space by 
novel items such as the teddy bears appearing on his sofa, which represent an erosion 
of formerly rigid boundaries between interior and exterior, control and lack of control, 
and a complete contrast with the prevailing ?ethos? of the environment, in terms of its 
architectural aesthetics.  But he also seems intrigued to see where this new fluidity 
might lead him in his own life: ?I quite like the unpredictability?.  although it?s quite 
ordered I?m surprised by the sort of spontaneity of things?. 
 Lynn is another resident who has closely guarded the integrity of her space 
from unwanted external influences: a single mother, who has brought up her son there 
from the age of four, she says, ?this is my home.  That I come to for my peace and my 
getting away from things.  Doing my homework, my political stuff.?  Although she 
enjoys the view down into the precinct and the sound of conversations wafting up, she 
is very sensitive to another kinds of noise, such as the sound of people being drunk 
and rowdy, which she describes as ?invasive? -  a specifically loaded term compared 
to the blunt ?awful? used by June to describe the sound of singing from the African 
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church in the TA room on a Sunday. Her distress at the acoustic penetration of her 
spatial boundaries has been compounded by the sudden emergence of the new 
supermarket roof, clearly visible from her windows, which constitutes a visual 
encroachment.   She describes ?the shock of waking up one day? I said, ?Oh my God 
what is it??? it was such a shock?.  Since then, she has kept the blinds closed over 
part of her windows to reinforce the external boundary to her flat and keep the assault 
on her senses, at bay. 
 But not all residents are so concerned with issues of privacy and enclosure, or 
segmentation, in the same way.    For instance, Susan, who has been intent on forging 
relationships with neighbours and putting down ?roots? at the Brunswick, has never 
been bothered by the sound of her neighbour talking on the balcony adjacent to theirs, 
or laughing at the television in the evening; nor had she ever closed the curtains 
across her windows, except sometimes on a Saturday evening, only because she didn?t 
want a male resident whom she knew on the other side of the precinct to see her 
?sitting here sadly? on her own.  It was not until she gave birth to her baby that she 
and her husband finally installed Venetian blinds to the windows, suggesting that the 
change in their circumstances, a new awareness of being a family unit and a kind of 
protective, inward focus associated with that, had prompted a shift in their attitude to 
the issue of privacy. 
 Annie and Anthony, who have two young daughters, and a new baby on the 
way, have a similarly open attitude to their neighbours ? all very ?interesting? people, 
as they put it ? and a fairly relaxed attitude to the integrity of the threshold between 
inside and outside life.  Although they admit to a certain self-consciousness about the 
state of the common parts when their ?snobbier? friends or Anthony?s parents come 
round, they will willingly go out there and wash down the lift themselves.  They are 
prepared to get their own hands dirty, if necessary, rather than wait for the caretakers, 
and have less of a concern about maintaining rigid segmentation between their lives 
inside the flat and the potential for disorder in the external areas.  But Annie and 
Anthony, like Rob and Francoise, are only at the Brunswick as a result of their 
engagement with the place as ?outsiders? having a specific architectural appreciation 
of the building generated from the outside in.  The public profile of the Brunswick is 
very much their ?business?, integrating their home life with their professional lives as 
a design journalist (whose father also worked on the Brunswick project thirty years 
ago) and an architect.  Along with Rob and Francoise, they have become involved 
 144 
with the TRA and with other projects (specifically the terraces project, and the 
Architecture Forum at the Bloomsbury Festival 2006) concerned with promoting the 
public image of the Brunswick, and an awareness of its history. 
 In the same way, the interior of the flat performs the function of a home 
combined with something of a showcase for the design values around which their 
work is based ? a showcase which has been photographed and displayed on more than 
one occasion in magazine articles about the Brunswick.  In contrast to other residents, 
Annie and Anthony are very relaxed about having their home and their family 
photographed, scarcely bothering to check where the photographs are likely to be 
published, since the boundaries between their private and public lives are relatively 
permeable and flexible.  To an extent, they live out a public agenda within the context 
of their intimate lives.  Within the flat, the alterations they have made and the 
furnishings and fittings they have chosen make explicit reference to the history and 
ideology of the original Brunswick concept, and represent contemporary 
interpretations of the ?modernist? design approach which they champion.  For 
instance, the Best and Lloyd light fittings have been chosen because ?we just thought 
they had a kind of feel of modernism?. 
While Susan, also an architect, has reproduced some of the values of her 
professional life inside her flat in the same way as Annie and Anthony, her references 
to the Brunswick itself as an exemplar of modernist architectural form-making are 
less explicit.  Rather than pursuing a fusion of exterior and interior identity in that 
way, she has sustained a level of permeability between her own existence in the flat 
and that of her predecessors there, an elderly couple who had lived there since the 
beginning, and very much represent to her an idea of an ?original? community at the 
Brunswick.  In the process of buying the flat from them, Susan forged quite an 
intimate relationship with them, and when they moved out they left numerous items in 
the flat for Susan, ??just to get you started?.? In preserving and hanging on to some of 
these items as mementoes and emblems of the previous occupants, Susan seems to 
underline her interest in forging a connection between herself and the long-standing 
?very close community? on the top floors, de-emphasising the boundary-lines between 
her own interior life within the flat, and the life of the community she perceives 
beyond her front door, in a desire to bring them together in some way.  
But in reality, inbuilt prejudices reflecting contrasting values across 
boundaries of class and education, have to be constantly renegotiated.  Even Susan 
 145 
acknowledges the anxiety she felt initially when her boyfriend wanted to install a 
substantial new flat-screen television, worrying that ?it was a bit lower class, a great 
big telly.  [But] it?s amazing how quickly you get used to it!?.  The TV doubles up as a 
computer, and ?it?s actually brilliant?.  By contrast, Annie and Anthony have an 
extremely compact television which is accommodated on a low trolley so that it can 
be pushed back against the wall, out of sight, when not in use.  They admit that  its 
diminutive size is significant in establishing a particular, segmented, identity in 
relation to many of their neighbours: ?we read a really funny piece in the FT a few 
weeks ago, which said you can tell what kind of a person someone is by the TV they 
have ? they got us quite right?. We don?t want it to be the centre of attention.?  Their 
home computer is a laptop which can also be moved discreetly around the flat, rather 
than explicitly displayed and celebrated as an emblem of consumer buying-power. 
Media and communications technology serves to codify distinctions among 
neighbours in one way, symbolising the contrasting tastes and values rooted in class 
and education, and the boundaries between one ?lifeworld? and another.   But it also 
embodies contrasting levels of integration and segmentation between interior and 
exterior worlds. Giulia sits with her back to the window, facing the TV which in its 
turn communes with the outside world, as if filtering her own contact with public life 
through the medium of TV.  Stephanie, by contrast, loves her view outwards from the 
?outside? of the building, as she puts it, and is frustrated by the windows themselves 
because she feels they are not big enough.  But she actually spends most of her time 
indoors, using email as a way of expressing herself and keeping in touch with others 
at a safe distance. Significantly, she has set her desk and computer well back in the 
room, away from the windows in a relatively dark corner, as if to emphasise a 
deliberate segmentation between the vitality of the street outside, and the virtual 
world which she addresses via her computer.  She seems to have made a self-
 conscious retreat away from the light, and, unlike other residents who praise the flats 
for their good levels of daylight,  insists the flat is ?not bright!?.    
Email has provided another level of communication which is readily available 
to anyone with a computer, but there are a number of residents who have not 
embraced it as a means of connecting with the outside world from within their homes.  
Ruth has finally decided that she must replace her outdated computer in order to have 
email at home, because she uses it extensively but must go down to the 
Neighbourhood Centre to do so on the computers there.  But Bob, who is also highly 
 146 
involved in local affairs and many committees, still resists email, even though it is 
maddening to his fellow committee members, who cannot include him on the 
circulars detailing meetings, minutes etc.  By contrast, he has a radio in each room of 
the flat, and listens to it almost constantly, as a means of keeping in touch with public 
life without any obligation to respond.   TV takes second place to the radio for him, 
although his sister watches it every evening, and he is about to relegate a small 
portable TV in his room to the store-cupboard downstairs.  The phone, however, is 
not portable, but fixed in a very traditional manner on a small table behind the front 
door, above which hangs a calendar on which to write down social engagements.  
This arrangement, which now looks distinctly old-fashioned, seems to embody the 
desire for orderly control which governs Bob and Jean?s life, maintaining clear 
boundaries within the flat to regulate incoming communications.  
For Kevin, email is for work, and he uses it mainly at the office, although they 
have a computer and email at home; but ?mates call us?.  The distinction is integral to 
his rigid filtering of unwanted, work-related interference from the genuine social 
interactions which he opens his doors to, and has provided for with a sofa-bed for 
visitors (possibly from Ireland) to crash on.  Unlike Stephanie, tapping out her 
thoughts on her computer, Kevin and his friends will sit up late at night, drinking and 
discussing the affairs of the world with some vigour: ?we were sitting in the early 
hours the other day arguing about this? he says, of the Labour party?s continuing 
commitment to the sale of council properties. 
The flats were originally fitted with clockwork doorbells that have to be 
wound up periodically in order for them to work.  Although with the installation of 
the electronic entry system they have become partially redundant, it still seemed 
interesting that in at least two cases they were not working, because the occupant of 
the flat had forgotten to wind them up, whether deliberately to screen unexpected 
visitors or inadvertently.  The entryphone system also provides a ?privacy? function, 
allowing residents to block visitors at street level.  These gadgets also, then, provide a 
means of surveying the threshold between exterior and interior, controlling one?s 
visibility in social relations, with minimum effort.  But technology in general serves a 
dual function ? both to reinforce and survey boundaries and guard carefully 
segmented identities, and to generate integration across boundaries when desired, with 
the particular power to transcend the limits of physical context and facilitate the 
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construction of more expansive narratives of self-identity than would otherwise be 
possible. 
 
4.3. The council estate in the city 
The physical environment constitutes a medium through which Brunswick residents 
continuously assert and negotiate their relationships with the building, with each 
other, and with the world beyond, establishing and developing specific narratives of 
self-identity.  That process, conflated with a sense of continuous movement and 
rearrangement, may be understood as a kind of dissolution of the fixed, static nature  
of the Brunswick as a unified architectural and spatial concept ? be it megastructure 
or town-room - into a mass of differentiated spaces, planes and social identities.   
While on the one hand the Brunswick as architectural icon retains a certain 
transcendent and ?fetishistic? power to pull these differentiated entities back together 
into some form of unified concept, the Brunswick as ?council estate? represents 
another form of overarching identity which is less discussed but also significant as a 
concept for framing this setting as a ?unified? social space.   
The term ?estate? is redolent with social implications grafted onto a specific 
type of physical environment recognisable as distinct and segmented from the rest of 
the city ? frequently inspired by modernist principles of planned housing, and often 
rundown.  Hodgkinson?s term ?town-room? embodies a similar idea, as a physical and 
social space within the city which is clearly bounded, but nonetheless understood and 
experienced as a component of a larger whole.  But the specific conditions under 
which the social and physical characteristics of the council estate have evolved 
differentiate it from other parts of the urban fabric, and constitute a force against 
integration which may become increasingly powerful over time ? even as council flats 
are sold off to private owners, and the social mix, in theory, becomes more varied. 
The Brunswick was historically known as the Brunswick Centre, focussing 
attention on the public space and shops between the two housing blocks, rather than 
an explicit identity as an estate identified by housing provision.  In that sense, there 
was always a clear sense of distance between it and surrounding council estates, and 
the term itself is used by relatively few residents in referring to the Brunswick, even 
those who are still or were originally council tenants.  Furthermore, the sheer look of 
?the place? as it is called more often, does not equate with the typical council estate.  
As Kevin puts it, ?it doesn?t shoot up into the air?, and this makes it seem smaller, 
 148 
more compact than it really is.  In fact, with 400-odd flats, it is quite big compared to 
others in the locality.  And, with its distinctive profile, it gets described in other ways 
that set it apart ? the ?ziggurat?, the ?greenhouses?, and ?cruise ship? being fairly 
typical: ?some people think it?s like a cruise ship that sort of lights up.  It?s very 
distinctive.?  
 In contrast to this local terminology, which also entered the public sphere 
through residents? campaigns against redevelopment, the council estate as a generic 
concept is often conflated in the public consciousness with that of ghetto, especially 
since council housing has become so scarce, and allocation cut back to serve only 
those in the most extreme need.  Hanley?s term ?walls in the head? (Hanley 2007) 
describes, from the inside, the mentality engendered by the experience of living on a 
council estate, and documents the ways in which post-war council estates typically 
become cut off from the rest of the city, both socially (the majority of people will be 
unemployed and confronted by a dearth of opportunity in their lives), and physically, 
often disconnected from urban centres as a result of poor location and transport links, 
and deprived of good quality shopping, educational and social resources.   
 Four times in the course of one interview, my respondent Lorraine uses the 
term ?prison? to describe aspects of life at the Brunswick, even as a former council 
tenant who expresses considerable pride in the fact that this is ?a council place?, and 
she ?a council tenant?, even though her status has technically changed to that of 
?house owner?: ?I say to myself don?t forget, I lived here, I?m a council tenant.  
Because I bought my flat it hasn?t changed me??.  When they first arrived, in 1971, 
?it was like living in prison.  It was all grey? everyone had red doors and once you 
got in you never saw a soul, unless the neighbours next to you.?  She later says, twice, 
that the attitude of the older residents towards the children who lived there led her 
sons to complain that it was like ?living in prison? at the Brunswick.  Finally, she says 
she doesn?t like the suggestion that gates might be installed at the entrances to the 
Brunswick precinct, and locked at night for security reasons, because it?s ?like being 
in prison, isn?t it?? 
 Lorraine?s metaphor vividly evokes the idea of ?walls in the head?, but in fact 
the Brunswick was never cut off physically or socially from the rest of the city; in 
fact, quite the contrary.  Its central London location is inherent to people?s perception 
of living there ? ?on top of everything?, to cite Lorraine again ? and the design was 
explicitly conceived by the architect (before Camden Council bought into the 
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development) to function as ?a town room?, with open ends, forming an integral part 
of a larger axis through the city; while it was anticipated, even after the flats had been 
acquired by the council specifically to promote family life in the area, that the 
residents would be what the architect called ?urbanites?, using their flats as base 
camps for a more expansive life outside, enjoying the metropolis. 
 Kevin, who previously lived on ?a really rough [council] estate? in Hackney, 
gets annoyed by residents who make out they live ?in the slums you know?, and says 
that most of his friends would love to live at the Brunswick, because it?s so 
accessible: ?it?s generally the location, it?s just so central, near the west end.  I feel I 
can get to places?.?. His teenage son can walk home quite easily after a late night 
out, and he doesn?t have to worry on that front.   Residents clearly do take advantage 
of the Brunswick as a base for enjoying the attractions of central London as a normal 
dimension of their lives, rather than an occasional treat: June and the theatres, Giulia 
and the galleries, especially the National Gallery, Jean and the ballet at the Royal 
Opera House.  In Lana?s mind, Bloomsbury was always ?the most sophisticated place 
in the world.?  Annie and Anthony, whose bedroom is decorated with a piece of fabric 
from a David Hockney production at the Royal Opera House, emphasise how 
important it is for them to be part of the cultural life of the city, and specifically to 
give that advantage to their children as they grow up, rather than move out to the 
suburbs or the countryside. 
From Annie and Anthony?s point of view, ?the only way of being central was 
to buy a council flat?, due to the escalating cost of property in central London.  For 
people like them, inner city council estates, far from being isolated ghettoes, have 
become a means of accessing the cultural life of the capital, of becoming true 
?urbanites?, for whom the home life around the metaphorical hearth (an ornamental 
gas fire in Bob?s case, smelly ?blow-out? heating for most) is less important than the 
trajectories they trace from their home into the city and back.  But there is one key 
condition for them and their peers, and that is that the building should be 
architecturally interesting.  The Brunswick was ideal in that sense: ?we were always 
really mad about this building?, but they also went some way down the route of 
buying a flat in Lillington Gardens, Pimlico (architects Darbourne and Darke, listed), 
and had previously lived in a 1970s council block called The Triangle in Clerkenwell, 
which they describe as ?one of the more interesting ones?. 
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Annie and Anthony, who come from middle-class backgrounds, and are not 
local (though Annie was brought up in Camden Town, not too far away), are not over-
 concerned about the public image of the council estate per se, nor by the realities of 
living in what they prefer to think of ?as being a mixed community that ? has 
interesting people? ? although they admit that ?leaseholders and tenants have a 
different set of interests and you can?t help that?, while ?quite a lot of leaseholders 
that are former tenants are not well off.?  Furthermore, they are part of a wider social 
network of like-minded friends and acquaintances who have done the same thing.  
Annie?s sister lives in an interesting, though ?not famous? (unlike the Brunswick) 
council block in Somers Town, just north of the Euston Road, and they also have 
friends living on the Maiden Lane estate (architects Benson and Forsyth, under 
consideration for listing) north of Kings Cross.  In fact they see themselves as, in 
some sense, pioneers: ?I mean when we bought the council flat no-one was doing it 
then, you know?. If you look at people like X and Y and a whole crowd who?ve 
bought council flats, they?ve had mortgage advice from a woman? she was 
recommended to me because she helped them get a mortgage on a council flat??  In 
effect, people like Annie and Anthony, with the advantage of university education, 
extensive social networks and good family contacts, have been able to push forward 
something of a revolution in urban living, through their access to specialised sources 
of knowledge and expertise, combined with the re-casting of council housing as a 
commodity on the open market.   
According to them, there is no discernible resentment towards them on the 
part of council tenants and former tenants turned leaseholder, but there is certainly an 
awareness of the changing character of the Brunswick from what was ?a council 
place? to something else.  According to Francoise, it takes the form of a studied lack 
of interest in newcomers ? ?people are not curious? ? while Rob thinks there was a 
discernible distrust of them personally as ?outsiders?, taking control of things, ?who 
were just interested in the reputation of the building and not in the people who lived 
there.?  But the change is two-pronged, because of the influx of ?problem? people 
(asylum seekers, offenders and the like) on the one hand, and of affluent, university-
 educated newcomers on the other.  Amongst those, the ones who have lived at the 
Brunswick for more than five years will distinguish themselves again from the most 
recent influx of property owners who are perceived as out-and-out ?yuppies?, but to 
 151 
long-term residents they are all the same, people who ?will do what they want 
anyway? at meetings, as Giulia puts it, explaining her reluctance to attend any more. 
For people like Lorraine, the original virtue of the Brunswick as a council 
place was essentially its local character, with local shops where you could buy things 
like needles and wool, people who knew each other from before, and a landlord which 
was the local council.  There was some sense of social cohesion based in local 
interaction and geographical identity, even though ?people were lonely? at first.  ?We 
got the tenants room, started a little play thing for the children? that?s how we made 
friends? that?s how it started?.  As a young woman, her social life was focussed 
around the children and her fellow mothers; later in life she became a home carer, 
working for the council, providing home visits to the elderly in flats at the Brunswick, 
and shopping in the old Safeways in the precinct for them. Now, having retired from 
that job, she has resumed work part-time as a dinner lady in a ?local? school ? 
Macklin Street in Covent Garden ? attended by numbers of Brunswick children in the 
past.  In other words, the spatial extent of her life has been intensely local, totally 
focussed around the Brunswick as a social setting, and as a council estate.  
She notes the influx of what she calls the ?la-di-da? people, and although she 
maintains ?we all get on?, and is careful not to criticise them, she expresses a sense of 
increasing personal alienation in the environment in which she has felt at home for 30 
years.  ?It?s not the same, everything?s gone, you know.  It?s all new, new people 
moving in?. there?s only about four of the people original, the rest have passed 
away? a lot of them have died, a lot of my friends moved out because they had boys 
and three children, it?s only two bedrooms.  We feel like we?re part of the survivors.?  
She says, ?I keep saying to my husband I?d like to move, because to me now it?s not 
the same.  I?ve lived round here all my life, and I don?t know if I could move, but I 
would like to.? 
For Lorraine, one of the symptoms of the social change which she finds most 
puzzling is the way that the newcomers will go to such lengths to reinstate the flats 
they have bought as ?council flats?.  When her friend eventually bought her council 
flat at the generous council discount, she spend some of ?the thousands? she had saved 
on the purchase on doing it up ? closing off the kitchen, laying fitted carpets, 
installing new bathroom and bedroom suites, and furniture from Maples.  But when 
she sold up in her turn, the new occupant ?put it back as a council flat, painted it all 
white?.  When Lorraine got a glimpse of it, selling raffle tickets door-to-door, she was 
 152 
shocked, telling the owner: ?if my friend could see what you?ve done to her place?. 
You could have bought my flat and I would have moved down there!? 
She herself has left her flat more or less untouched, mainly because she hasn?t 
had the money to do otherwise.  A fact which would be welcomed by buyers like 
Annie and Anthony, whose own flat had been ?done up? by a Thai family, in what 
they call a ?soft Georgian? style.  They were ?keen on salvaging anything that was left 
[of the original flat]?, and relieved to find that the former occupants had not removed 
the original door handles: ?they?re Danish, the same as Vulcan, they?re stainless steel, 
they?re really good?. One of the really good quality things that were salvaged from 
the original design?.   Indeed, for Annie and Anthony, one of the joys of living in ex-
 council flats is the fact that ?you do get items of quality?, in terms of the fitting out.  
On their Clerkenwell council estate, for example, they had ?very good quality 
aluminium sliding windows.  A really nice design.  You do get those details coming 
in.?   
Their appreciation of the material hallmarks of good council housing design is 
lost on residents such as Lorraine, who, whatever their pride in being council tenants, 
see them only as symbols of their tenancy agreements, to be replaced as quickly as 
possible after purchase.  Annie and Anthony do not have to make those tangible 
changes to prove their status, and in case, there is a cultural chasm in terms of their 
aesthetic presuppositions.  But, from Annie and Anthony?s perspective, a more recent 
incomer has gone over the top in ripping out the interior of her flat and 
commissioning an interior design consultant to reposition it firmly as a London pied-
 a-terre, in a sought-after, upmarket development.  This woman, who has reputedly 
spent ?50,000 on doing up her flat, and had it featured in a magazine, lives in 
O?Donnell Court, below June.  June, who has seen the flat, is quite simply astonished 
that anyone would put so much effort into their home: ?When I saw this flat, 
everything done to the nth degree, I just couldn?t imagine.  She?s so proud of it!  I just 
can?t conceive of living in, doing that to a place?. I thought this was lovely for her, 
but it wouldn?t be me at all.?   
 June believes that people who have bought their flats at the Brunswick, ?as a 
proper purchase?, made a very different choice from people like her (who eventually 
bought her flat, against her social principles, because it would have been stupid not 
to), and that impinges on the way they see the space, and their concept of making a 
home out of it.  Clearly this is not quite true, because other former tenants like 
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Lorraine?s friend, or like Gloria, have also gone to great lengths to achieve, in 
Gloria?s words, a level of ?self-expression.? Whereas June is determined to set herself 
apart from the newcomers, others in her position have set out to remake themselves as 
?newcomers? in a different sense ? newcomers to a world of property ownership 
which would have been unknown to their parents and grandparents.  
According to Kevin, who has not bought his flat, but sometimes regrets it, a 
lot of people at the Brunswick have done ?wonderful and imaginative things? with 
their flats, but that is not for him.   If he could change anything, it would be to enlarge 
the kitchen so that two people could work in it comfortably. But he dismisses the idea:  
?you?d have to ask permission from them [the council] and you wouldn?t get it.?   His 
attitude is completely the opposite of newcomer Rob, who as a flat-owner has a fairly 
laissez-faire attitude towards the council.  He has removed the wall between the WC 
and the bathroom, without applying for permission.  He and his girlfriend also 
removed the partition between the kitchen and the living-room to create one open-
 plan space, because his girlfriend it felt too much ?like a council flat? as it was. 
Kevin?s adherence to the rules reflects his own concern for his job, which ties 
him to the council in another way, as local employer, but may also be seen a symptom 
of his concern for control of the relationship between inside and outside at the 
Brunswick.  As caretaker he is very much ?on the front line? in terms of dealing with 
anti-social behaviour in the public areas, and he is worried by the ?de-regulation? as it 
were of council estates in general.  He laments the sale and loss of council property to 
the open market, because, although ?the majority of the people who?ve bought in the 
Brunswick have made a contribution.  Some have been really positive?, it has led to a 
chronic shortage of irreplaceable council housing, and this in turn prompted changes 
in Camden?s housing allocation policy which have had adverse effects.  The original 
character of the council estate has altered, and social cohesion is not what it was.   
As Gloria explains, the council had had the sense to re-house existing 
neighbours and family members together at the Brunswick, literally street by street, 
when it first opened, which helped to sustain social and family networks amongst 
people who had, like her, ?roots? in the area, and an intense loyalty to it: ?it was 
always a little bit upmarket?.  At the beginning, sons and daughters had an automatic 
right to council housing when they reached independence, but, in order to address the 
shortage of housing, and give priority to those in extreme need, this right was taken 
away, leading to considerable resentment among local white families.  Although 
 154 
residents like Susan express exasperation at the complaints voiced by these families ? 
?you get some people, ?it?s all foreigners and drug addicts and my son?s been living 
here since.. and he can?t get a flat??? - Kevin is sympathetic to their case.  ?When I 
came on the estate first there were quite a lot of extended families.  Lots of them? 
white extended families? If you brought your kids up on the estate and they?re getting 
married you?d go down to the local housing office, and get a flat? I think it?s gone to 
the other extreme, families are completely broken up, and moving out of London.?  In 
their place are either the newcomers who have bought their flats from them, or the 
more transient population of people who have a statutory right to be rehoused.  ?The 
only people who are getting flats are people who have been in prison, alcohol 
problems, homeless? I have blocks that have changed enormously, people have gone 
from their own people living there? and suddenly it just changes because of four or 
five young guys, all come with their problems.? 
Kevin?s account evokes a perception of de-regulation and breakdown in the 
original social order of the council estate, which has in his experience been alleviated 
by the introduction of ASBOs, but can never be reinstated.   Although he thinks that 
the influx of affluent newcomers can ?drive the standards up rather than down?, if 
they pull their weight, he feels that what is important is a ?good mix?, and that the only 
reason why that has been maintained at the Brunswick is the fact that 30% of the flats 
are still sheltered ?for relatively vulnerable people?, and will not therefore enter the 
open market, whatever the ?conspiracy theories? that circulate.   
But the thriving state of ?conspiracy theories? and the ?rumour mill? at the 
Brunswick (otherwise known as the BBC, Brunswick Broadcasting Community),  
seem to substantiate the criticisms of estate culture voiced by residents such as Bob.  
He evokes a picture of an inward-looking, council-dependent community which will 
not take responsibility for its own actions.   ?Everyone moans about nothing being 
done, then they are moaning because things are being done? They?ll moan to me and 
my next-door neighbour.  They seem frightened to go to the authorities.  They don?t 
seem to want to rock the boat? with the council.?  Francoise is more extreme in her 
characterisation of first-generation residents as being like school children who never 
grow up: ?they need to have their parents to tell them what to do, what to think? or  
teachers, they criticise them behind their back, waiting for one citizen to do the dirty 
job.?  For them, the council is both ?enemy and provider?, and their relationship with 
it, embodied by the physical setting of the estate itself, seems imprisoning.  
 155 
According to Stephanie, there is a pervasive attitude that ?you?ve got your 
council flat you?ve got your coffin? ? security provided by the council till death.  But 
the effect of this can also be a level of apathy and lack of initiative.  The pervasive 
circulation of unsubstantiated stories and rumours seems to manifest a certain sense of 
helplessness on the part of residents, of not being completely in control of their own 
lives.  They nurture anxiety and resentment, a sense of ?them against us?, but provide 
no incentive or framework for action.  There are rumours that Allied London, the 
developer, is trying to break Camden?s lease on the housing, and decant all the 
council tenants somewhere else, that the council is progressively de-sheltering flats so 
as to sell them on the open market, and that certain residents are being blocked from 
right-to-buy.  But above all, the Brunswick?s inhabitants feel a strong resentment at 
the perceived neglect of the building by the council since its completion, and by the 
freeholder in its proposals for refurbishment: ?people feel they?ve been badly let down 
by the building owners and by Camden?, says Rob.  Although tenants? meetings tend 
to be noisy, even ?bawdy? affairs, according to one resident, they seem to provide an 
opportunity for exchanging the latest gossip, voicing complaints as loudly as possible, 
and haranguing the committee and any guest speakers ? eg the estate manager, 
English Heritage?s representative, and Allied London?s liaison officer -  rather than 
positively engaging in efforts to give the residential community a voice as a cohesive 
entity. 
Kevin is dismissive of the rumours ? ?I?ve heard them for 20 years.?  But, 
even though there are tenants such as Giulia who have not only benefited from, but 
are full of admiration for a welfare system which simply doesn?t exist in her home 
country of Italy, they embody a community?s sense of dependency combined with 
distrust and helplessness in relation both to the council and the freeholder, which is 
voiced even by newcomers who have never been council tenants themselves.  New 
leaseholders feel very vulnerable to disproportionately high service charges being 
levied on their flats in order to subsidise the council?s rental properties.  Of the current 
plans to install a new heating system, Conal says ?Well, they?re threatening to start 
in? we feel besieged.?  And again, ?we?re under threat for all these extra works?.  
The council is characterised as an ominous, encroaching presence, and the residents as 
being trapped inside their homes, unable to escape.  Lana gives the situation a 
political slant, with her reference to a ?militant left? in the council, which deliberately 
obstructed her partner?s efforts to buy his council flat years ago, and failed to protect 
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him from his aggressive and violent neighbour more recently: political orthodoxies 
encroaching on home life.  She is not the only one who also hints at endemic 
corruption within the council, since other residents openly suggest that the approval of 
the supermarket roof design must have involved ?money changing hands.?  Indeed, the 
supermarket roof issue provided a potent focus for anger not only against the council, 
but also the freeholder and architect, who were accused of behaving disrespectfully 
towards council tenants perceived as a particular social group.  Lynn says: ?I was so 
angry about what?s happened? [the architect] just didn?t tell the truth, and people 
here are furious.  I think people are feeling helpless, at all that?s happened?? She 
further suggests that railings have been installed around the edge of the roof  ?so we 
wouldn?t destroy it.  They [the owners] need to protect themselves from us.  It was 
very insulting.?  Gloria also voices her indignation at the fact that the building owner 
has not shown the residents sufficient respect, and her determination to stand up to 
them: ?I don?t think you should ever allow yourself to be frightened by them [big 
companies].? 
 Residents? perception of themselves as a social group defined by a relationship 
with the council, and embodied in the decaying fabric of the building, has contributed 
to a strong sense of living in a David and Goliath situation at the Brunswick going 
back thirty years.  It sets the Brunswick apart, forming an invisible boundary between 
the estate and the city beyond its edges, which is reinforced by the sense of being 
observed, as a discrete object of enquiry, from the outside ? both by experts in the 
architecture and heritage industries, and by casual onlookers who are always ready to 
express an opinion on the Brunswick.  Thus, although the Brunswick is not a typical 
council estate in terms of its physical and social fabric, and could never be described 
as a ?ghetto? in the normal sense of the word, it has paradoxically been subjected to 
another kind of ?ghetto-isation?, or setting-apart, over the years on account of its 
architectural interest.   
 The obsessive focus on the building itself, both in terms of its external 
architectural profile, and its internal structural problems, is one which has permeated 
residents? consciousness, through their everyday relationship with their living 
environment, to the point where the Brunswick has taken on the persona of a diseased 
body under attack from external forces.  On the one hand this has created a sense of 
palpable frustration and helplessness, but conversely it has aroused strong feelings of 
loyalty and brought residents together as a ?community? poised against the outside 
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world of shameless speculators and people who want to ?do well? out of, or exploit the 
Brunswick, as Lana puts it.  For Lana, as for many others, the Brunswick may have 
been a ?shabby dump?, but it was also ?our own little bit of paradise?, and she is not 
happy with the way it has been reintegrated into mainstream, consumer-driven 
society.  As a council estate, the Brunswick stood outside the normal economic forces 
and effects of capitalist society, as a sort of ?marginal? space which offered  the 
potential of sanctuary to those who wanted or needed it.  But from the early 1990s, 
residents found themselves fighting on various different fronts to protect the 
Brunswick from redevelopment plans which they considered architecturally 
inappropriate, and brazenly driven by the desire to profit from its enviable location 
and turn a council estate into yuppie flats.  Even Kevin, who admits he finds the 
building ?hideous?, helped to take round a petition against redevelopment, on the 
grounds it was ?not in keeping? with the existing architecture.  For Lynn, the ?fight-
 back with the developers was one of the most wonderful things in my life ? the way 
that local people really got together and stood their ground.?  Although she describes 
herself as having been ?very detached? from the building when she first moved in, the 
campaigns against redevelopment led her to start meeting people and getting 
involved.  Thus the threat posed to the Brunswick by global capital served as the 
catalyst for a powerful expression of united resistance that was underpinned, on the 
one hand, by the perception of the building as an untouchable architectural icon, but 
on the other, by a fundamental loyalty and commitment to a social concept of the 
place as a council estate and embodiment of local community and interests. 
 When Allied London finally bought the building, amid much talk of 
consultation, a lot of people found it ?very exciting? (Lana); but in the process which 
followed, including the listing of the Brunswick, and what was perceived as a gradual 
sidelining of residents? interests, much of the original fire was lost, and further 
conspiracy theories gathered steam ? residents warned each other that Allied London 
would ultimately do nothing, leave the building to rot, to the point where they could 
legitimately pull it down.  Leaseholders? mortgages would become valueless.  After 
the removal of the grand external staircase, and then the footbridges connecting the 
two blocks, supposedly for security reasons, there was a real sense that the integrity of 
the Brunswick, not just as an architectural landmark, but also as ?a united estate?,  had 
been destroyed.  As June, in O?Donnell Court, says, ?all we?ve got are two 
blocks?facing one another, with no link at all? We?re not a united estate any more.  
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To get to the Tenants Room for meetings we have to go down, outside and round and 
ring the bell, which is insulting I think.? 
 It was strongly felt that the developer made it difficult for the residents to have 
a genuine voice in the changes being made, and the effect of the refurbishment of the 
shopping precinct is clearly perceived as a way of drawing a tighter physical and 
social boundary between the residents and the street level of the development in a way 
that decisively changes the original development concept and the history of the place 
to date.  Not only are the shops perceived as too expensive and upmarket for council 
tenants? pockets, not to say irrelevant to their everyday needs, but also, as Anthony 
explains, ?in order to attract the shops the developer has had to make a clearer 
separation between the residential and the commercial.  It?s almost happened literally 
in the fabric of the architecture in the sense that ? they are building out the line of 
the column of the shops and then there?s a canopy, so actually when you?re in that 
space you?ll be less aware that you?re part of a big development.?    
 In other words, the council estate above the shopping precinct has been more 
clearly segregated from ground level and from public use, the boundaries between the 
explicitly public and the domestic more closely drawn.  Furthermore, the construction 
of the supermarket roof has cut off the view from flats at the north end, so that 
residents can no longer see the surrounding buildings, and, from O?Donnell Court, the 
sun setting in the evening.  These views have been very important, connecting life 
inside the estate to the neighbourhood beyond, and the loss seems to confine residents 
to their ?own? territory more tightly.   There is a perception that the developer has 
deliberately set limits on residents? sense of ?ownership? within the Brunswick, and 
there is speculation and rumour about Allied London?s long-term intentions in terms 
of taking over the estate entirely and turning it into a privately-owned upmarket 
development to accommodate affluent professionals in London pieds-a-terres.   
  For residents like Giulia, the effects of the changes are already too distressing.  
As an Italian with communist sympathies, and a huge admirer of the British welfare 
state, she is outraged that ?working-class flats? were ever sold off in the first place, for 
profit, and she is very worried about the new people ? ?what kind of people?? ? who 
will move in when the Brunswick is refurbished.  She not only identifies with, but 
also values the Brunswick as a council estate.  But others, like Rob?s new girlfriend 
Amanda, are disparaging about the place precisely because of its council estate 
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credentials: ?As soon as I walk in I feel that council housing feel? There?s something 
about it that automatically, you know it?s council.?   
For some newcomers, the social and physical identity of the Brunswick as a 
council estate is something they cannot romanticise, but need to distance themselves 
from, and the architectural status of the building provides the framework for another 
kind of identification with the place.  Rob?s previous girlfriend, Francoise, felt a 
similar antipathy to the idea of living in a council flat, while at the same time she was 
strongly attracted, and could relate to the Brunswick as a very ?striking? building.  In a 
sense, she lived at one remove from the social realities of the building, through her 
imagination of what it might be, prompted by its particular formal and material 
qualities.  While she describes her own ?reality? there as ?shapeless?, something that 
she cannot easily make sense of from the inside, she is quick to re-construct other 
people?s lives there as stories framed by the theatrical setting of the Brunswick.  She 
is particularly interested by one resident who is wheeled around in his wheelchair by 
identical twin daughters: ?the door of the lift opens, and you see that! It is like David 
Cronenburg? OK, here it is for you.  It?s a m?nage-a-trois story .. probably a you-
 don-t-want-to-know kind of story.  But actually I would like to know!  It is captivating!  
R: J.G.Ballard.  F: It?s a film, a novel. Just with the picture of this guy in his 
wheelchair and the two girls.. a sort of Diane Arbus.. or Almodovar.?  Likewise, she 
is fascinated by a woman and her daughter who live in O?Donnell Court: ?they?ve got 
an incredible story to tell? This story is? R: It?s gonna go on for ages!  F: no, I?ll 
try to be short.?   
It is Francoise who was the driving force behind the Brunswick Art 
Exhibition, in which artists were invited to re-present the Brunswick as an artistic and 
dramatic setting, as a world apart from the humdrum existence of everyday life on a 
council estate, and Francoise who complains about the negative reaction of residents 
who are happy to engage with the Brunswick at that everyday level.  Rob is generally 
more conciliatory towards the community he sees around him, but he too has a 
tendency to view his life there through the perspective of  a camera lens. He has 
photographed the architectural vista through the A-frame (which makes Francoise feel 
self-conscious and uncomfortable when she?s walking to her front door) to make a 
postcard for their personal use, as well as the abstract images of wild plants growing 
among the paving slabs of the terraces which he hopes one day to hang on the walls of 
his flat. 
 160 
  If from the outside the Brunswick is perceived as an architectural icon, and a 
fascinating, if sometimes repellent, ?other? - a ?location? which has inspired numerous 
film and TV producers throughout it?s life-span - it is nevertheless experienced and 
understood from the inside, in varying ways, very strongly as a council estate, being a 
part of, but simultaneously distinct from the rest of the city in particular ways.  
Caught up in some sort of transformative process, there is a sense of ambiguity about 
the relationship between interior and exterior, which residents frame in different ways 
according to their own backgrounds, aspirations, and social contexts, and reproduce 
through the material worlds of their own homes.