0:00:04 > 0:00:07BBC Four Collections - archive programmes chosen by experts.
0:00:07 > 0:00:09For this collection, Janet Street-Porter has selected
0:00:09 > 0:00:12programmes about post-war architecture.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14More programmes on this theme
0:00:14 > 0:00:18and other BBC Four Collections are available on BBC iPlayer.
0:00:39 > 0:00:43I was asked to pick a 20th-century building that I really liked.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46Now, when you're asked something like that,the mind turns
0:00:46 > 0:00:48to the grandand the mighty -
0:00:48 > 0:00:51to the big monuments, to the big guys.
0:00:51 > 0:00:56But I've come here not because it's great, nor even because I like it.
0:00:56 > 0:00:59I don't know about that yet. This is what we're going to find out.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07It's one of the best examples of modern council housing.
0:01:07 > 0:01:11It's big and it's small, it's cheap and cheerful,
0:01:11 > 0:01:13it's cheeky and it's clever.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17It's kind of like apomegranate.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19It's fruity. Hard edges,
0:01:20 > 0:01:21and soft, sweet places inside.
0:01:32 > 0:01:33This is the Byker Wall.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36Really, it's a hard, thick skin.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40It's also an architectural epic - a legend.
0:01:40 > 0:01:42It was designed by Ralph Erskine in the late '60s
0:01:42 > 0:01:46as the first phase of a slum-clearance programme.
0:01:46 > 0:01:50His prototype was the walled city, anarctic fortress,
0:01:50 > 0:01:53a barricade against the winter weather.
0:01:53 > 0:01:54But the Byker Wall is a defence
0:01:54 > 0:01:59against that inclement characteristic of British cities - the motorway.
0:01:59 > 0:02:02MUSIC: "CarminaBurana" by Carl Orff
0:02:39 > 0:02:41The wall reveals its function.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44A wall is a wall is a wall,
0:02:44 > 0:02:47until you walk through it or live in it.
0:02:48 > 0:02:52Inside, these streets in the sky are safe and secure.
0:02:52 > 0:02:55They face the light and the landscape.
0:02:55 > 0:02:59For people who once had no horizon beyond somebody else's roof,
0:02:59 > 0:03:03here there's free access to the sky and the cityscape.
0:03:03 > 0:03:04And that's a gift, isn't it?
0:03:05 > 0:03:08That architecture can contribute to a community.
0:03:08 > 0:03:11For a neighbourhood that once looked into nowhere but a back yard,
0:03:11 > 0:03:16there's real pleasure and privilege in the possession of this landscape.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18Byker began with a tree bank.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21It's got a fifth of the city's total trees
0:03:21 > 0:03:25and it's got 3,500 beds of shrubs and flowers.
0:03:25 > 0:03:30Each pip in the pomegranate grows and grows andgrows -
0:03:30 > 0:03:33so much so that sometimes the people feel crowded out,
0:03:33 > 0:03:38or that the trees are stealing their light. And so they get them felled.
0:03:39 > 0:03:42Philistines? Not necessarily.
0:03:42 > 0:03:45This is an expression of Byker's democracy.
0:03:45 > 0:03:48This is public housing and although the public who live here
0:03:49 > 0:03:52aren't owners, they are organised.
0:03:52 > 0:03:54And they get to influence the environment
0:03:54 > 0:03:57beyond their own front door or their own front gate.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02This building, for instance, was going to be here.
0:04:02 > 0:04:04But the people protested, so it's here.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09Private spaces merge with the public.
0:04:09 > 0:04:15There's nowhere marooned, doomed, undefended or indefensible.
0:04:15 > 0:04:16And you've got to look really hard
0:04:16 > 0:04:19to find anywhere that's wrecked or graffiti,
0:04:19 > 0:04:22cos people aren't diminished by the place.
0:04:23 > 0:04:25And people - particularly little people -
0:04:26 > 0:04:29seem to take possession of the public spaces and make them their own.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01But what does all this mean for architecture?
0:05:01 > 0:05:04Is it modernist or postmodernist or what?
0:05:04 > 0:05:08For sure, it abolishes aggressive phallic architecture-
0:05:08 > 0:05:11all those grey erections which puncture the skyline.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14Maybe it's vulval architecture.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17It's round, it goes with the contours of the landscape,
0:05:17 > 0:05:20it's an enclosure rather than a disclosure,
0:05:20 > 0:05:23full of nooks and crannies, layers and levels and surprises.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28Byker breaks with '60s brutalism,
0:05:28 > 0:05:31bought off the shelf by post-war Britain.
0:05:31 > 0:05:33It broke, too, with an older barbarism -
0:05:33 > 0:05:36the private and profitable back-to-backs which, ironically,
0:05:36 > 0:05:40became emblematic of plebeian homesteads.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44Erskine's Byker had to match the density of the old back-to-backs,
0:05:44 > 0:05:47which housed over 9,000 people.
0:05:47 > 0:05:51But every dwelling beyond the Wall has access not only to its back yard
0:05:51 > 0:05:54butto some other shared, secret garden.
0:05:54 > 0:05:59The new units were compact, certainly on the small side, and cheap.
0:06:21 > 0:06:26This may not be architecture as art, but it's infinitely artful.
0:06:26 > 0:06:28The plastic balconies to maximise the light,
0:06:28 > 0:06:33the blue tin roofs that cheer up a landscape that once was dour,
0:06:33 > 0:06:35and the wood, rough panels.
0:06:35 > 0:06:38They're all ingenious design solutions but, more than that,
0:06:38 > 0:06:42they're clever economic compromises to meet the stiff cost constraints
0:06:42 > 0:06:44imposed on public housing.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50They look flimsy and flighty but, for all their fragility,
0:06:50 > 0:06:52they've had remarkable stamina.
0:06:52 > 0:06:54They've been up for more than 15 years
0:06:54 > 0:06:58and they give a fresh inflection to the meaning of modernism.
0:06:58 > 0:07:01This is the new age of plastic and paint.
0:07:02 > 0:07:06There's humour here and a kind of honesty. It is what it is.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08There's no mock Tudor or Georgian grandeur
0:07:09 > 0:07:11to give dignity to a boring suburban semi.
0:07:15 > 0:07:18The project's tribulations come less from the non-traditional design
0:07:18 > 0:07:23and the unorthodox materials than from economic mistakes
0:07:23 > 0:07:25and political mismanagement.
0:07:28 > 0:07:31The district heating system, for instance,
0:07:31 > 0:07:35is expensive and inflexible. It's a folly of its time.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39But Byker doesn't suffer from many of the epidemics of British housing,
0:07:39 > 0:07:41like condensation.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44British homes leak heat like sheddingtears,
0:07:44 > 0:07:50but that's notso so much in Byker, because of the unorthodox design.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52And then there's repairs.
0:07:52 > 0:07:56That word is the tenant's lament everywhere.
0:07:56 > 0:08:00Contractors hired by the council take weeks and weeks,
0:08:00 > 0:08:02nay months, to fix things.
0:08:02 > 0:08:04And that drives a person crazy.
0:08:06 > 0:08:08The crusade against council homes means that tenants,
0:08:08 > 0:08:13unlike owner-occupiers, enjoy no subsidy, no tax relief.
0:08:13 > 0:08:17So although Byker is the most popular council estate in Newcastle,
0:08:17 > 0:08:20people leave because it costs more to live here
0:08:20 > 0:08:23than on this subsidised private estate.
0:08:24 > 0:08:26Contractors and direct works
0:08:26 > 0:08:29are gearedup to 40,000 traditionalhomes,
0:08:29 > 0:08:32not 2,000 with tin roofs.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36And yet Byker's a pioneering kind of public housing,
0:08:36 > 0:08:40which isn't just user-friendly - it's worker friendly.
0:08:40 > 0:08:42This is an epic development.
0:08:42 > 0:08:44Street by street, the old slums were cleared
0:08:44 > 0:08:48while, street by street, the new Byker was built.
0:08:48 > 0:08:51It's flawed, of course, but at least, unlike most of its contemporaries,
0:08:51 > 0:08:53there's a bit of democracy here.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57It's both monumental and modest.
0:08:57 > 0:08:59It's a social spaceand domestic.
0:09:01 > 0:09:05There's something light-hearted about this place. Something lovable.