0:00:02 > 0:00:07BBCFour Collections - archive programmes chosen by experts.
0:00:07 > 0:00:09For this collection, Janet Street-Porterhas selected
0:00:09 > 0:00:12programmes about post-war architecture.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14More programmes on this theme
0:00:14 > 0:00:17and other BBC Four Collections are available on BBC iPlayer.
0:00:47 > 0:00:50Dominating the Elephant and Castle, Alexander Fleming House
0:00:50 > 0:00:54would look more at home in Moscow or Leningrad.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57Here is an imposing building, a rare example of constructivism.
0:01:00 > 0:01:04I've always found its dour massiveness remarkably impressive.
0:01:04 > 0:01:07And it may lack charm, but it's serious architecture.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13Constructivists wanted to emphasise the way a building was put together,
0:01:13 > 0:01:15not hide it.
0:01:15 > 0:01:19Today, such ideas are unfashionable and the building is under threat.
0:01:21 > 0:01:24Alexander Fleming House was built for the Department of Health
0:01:24 > 0:01:25in the early 1960s.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28It's actually five buildings - four of them
0:01:28 > 0:01:30linked together by daring walkways.
0:01:30 > 0:01:33It's the masterpiece of the late Anglo-Hungarian architect
0:01:33 > 0:01:35Erno Goldfinger.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41Goldfinger was born in 1902 and studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.
0:01:43 > 0:01:47It was the Paris of Le Corbusier, Max Ernst and Man Ray
0:01:47 > 0:01:49and when Goldfinger came to London,
0:01:49 > 0:01:53he brought with him a package of cosmopolitan intellectualism which
0:01:53 > 0:01:57so helped invigorate the flaccid English culture of the 1930s.
0:01:57 > 0:02:01This is one of the best perspectives of Alexander Fleming House.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04Goldfinger made no attempt at concealment,
0:02:04 > 0:02:07but indeed it was part of his architectural idea to reveal
0:02:07 > 0:02:10structure and to express the way the building was made.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13There are characteristic details - the cornicing.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17Goldfinger didn't want to create banal, desiccated architecture,
0:02:17 > 0:02:19he wanted to create interesting, forceful stuff.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22So the water tower is exposed,
0:02:22 > 0:02:25every fifth floor is different and the rhythms of the facade express
0:02:25 > 0:02:28the architect's commitment to making an interesting,
0:02:28 > 0:02:30strong and powerful building.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34Modern architecture is not necessarily banal and reductivist.
0:02:34 > 0:02:38Alexander Fleming House is a subtle and complex design which betrays
0:02:38 > 0:02:43many of the elements of Goldfinger's classical training.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47The proportions of the building, the clarity of the structure,
0:02:47 > 0:02:50the rich modelling of the facades with their bays and recesses,
0:02:50 > 0:02:53all reflect an architectural concept of the first water.
0:02:55 > 0:03:00The contrasts between transparent and solid, the dramatic modelling,
0:03:00 > 0:03:02produce the very effect of hazard and surprise
0:03:02 > 0:03:06sought by that great neo-classicist Sir John Soane.
0:03:06 > 0:03:11Goldfinger may have had the sanction of Soane and the constructivists,
0:03:11 > 0:03:13but he was interested in realism, not fantasy
0:03:13 > 0:03:16and this may be why his architecture frightens us.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23Just imagine Alexander Fleming House had been in a city like Berlin -
0:03:23 > 0:03:27it would have been a place of pilgrimage for architecture students.
0:03:27 > 0:03:29Or imagine it in a modern city like Sydney -
0:03:29 > 0:03:33proud of its present and confident of its future.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36Instead, this building, the winner of a civic design award
0:03:36 > 0:03:41when it was completed in 1967, is a victim of the new 1980s philistinism.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46A plan to clad it in vulgar mirror glass has been
0:03:46 > 0:03:48approved by the Department of the Environment,
0:03:48 > 0:03:51against protests from the architectural profession.
0:03:52 > 0:03:54Almost everybody except the profession complains about
0:03:54 > 0:03:59Alexander Fleming House, particularly the people who work in it.
0:03:59 > 0:04:01But the building's problems come not from its architecture,
0:04:01 > 0:04:05but from underfunding and negligent maintenance.
0:04:05 > 0:04:08Part of its sinister aspect is caused by hideous, makeshift black mesh
0:04:09 > 0:04:12screens, a half-hearted attempt to provide thermal protection in
0:04:12 > 0:04:14an ugly fit of penny-pinching.
0:04:18 > 0:04:21Sophisticated heating and ventilation were actually in Goldfinger's
0:04:21 > 0:04:23original design.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26Were they now implemented, the building would become perfectly
0:04:26 > 0:04:29habitable and immediately more attractive.
0:04:29 > 0:04:33But vengeful preservationists and get-rich-quick PLCs
0:04:33 > 0:04:36demand a sacrifice and that is Erno Goldfinger's fine building.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45Goldfinger was a classicist whose sympathy with his surroundings
0:04:45 > 0:04:47and with traditions are apparent in the house
0:04:47 > 0:04:50he designed for his family by Hampstead Heath.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53Built against much conservative opposition in the 1930s,
0:04:53 > 0:04:56these houses are now listed by exactly those authorities who
0:04:56 > 0:04:58neglect Alexander Fleming House.
0:05:00 > 0:05:04In the Hampstead houses, Goldfinger used concrete for the frame
0:05:04 > 0:05:06but faced the structure with English brick in a clever fusion
0:05:06 > 0:05:09of traditional materials and modern design.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27The modernism is uncompromising, but it's not sterile.
0:05:27 > 0:05:30I mean, Goldfinger's conception of a machine for living in was one which
0:05:30 > 0:05:34included landscape, art and books.
0:05:34 > 0:05:39What he wanted was a sort of modernist utopia for everyone.
0:05:41 > 0:05:44Idealism is no longer considered attractive,
0:05:44 > 0:05:48but remember that since the end of the Second World War, Goldfinger
0:05:48 > 0:05:52had had plans to rid London of its slums and squalor.
0:05:55 > 0:05:58In 1956, London County Council published a detailed plan
0:05:58 > 0:06:01for the rebuilding of the Elephant and Castle.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05On the site of Alexander Fleming House, there would not only be
0:06:05 > 0:06:09offices, but also shops and entertainments as well.
0:06:09 > 0:06:14Goldfinger's winning design was meant to be an ideal vision. With space,
0:06:14 > 0:06:18trees and a cinema around the four blocks, it was conceived before less
0:06:18 > 0:06:22benign and more punitive modernistic experiments had been proved failures.
0:06:28 > 0:06:30It wasn't Erno Goldfinger's fault that short sight
0:06:30 > 0:06:34and political muddling caused the original vision to blur.
0:06:34 > 0:06:36Alexander Fleming House is now a grimy,
0:06:36 > 0:06:39lonely jewel in a busy wasteland.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45The architect and his architecture cannot be blamed for the slum that
0:06:45 > 0:06:49the Elephant and Castle has become, a sleazy stew of architectural
0:06:49 > 0:06:52mediocrity surrounding one of London's busiest traffic junctions.
0:06:55 > 0:06:58A place where people are forced into open sewers
0:06:58 > 0:07:00while traffic congeals on the surface.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07To suggest that Goldfinger contributed to today's mess
0:07:07 > 0:07:10is like attacking the sculpture of the Venus de Milo
0:07:10 > 0:07:13because the arms have been knocked off.
0:07:14 > 0:07:17Not every modern building has charm
0:07:17 > 0:07:19and not every one has been successful.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23What's more, I'm certain a die-hard modernist like Goldfinger would
0:07:23 > 0:07:26have welcomed the demolition of Alexander Fleming House
0:07:26 > 0:07:28and its replacement by something better.
0:07:28 > 0:07:32But to clad the building in mirror glass is an insult to our recent
0:07:32 > 0:07:36heritage, an act of vandalism as brutal and ignorant in its way
0:07:36 > 0:07:40as the destruction of the Euston Arch or the vandalising of any relic.
0:07:40 > 0:07:44There are impressive letters of protest to Nicholas Ridley,
0:07:44 > 0:07:47but with an historic buildings committee opposed almost to a man
0:07:48 > 0:07:50to modernism, there was frankly very little chance
0:07:50 > 0:07:53that Alexander Fleming House would ever get listed.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56But the issue of the cinema was left unclear.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00On the very day an article was published
0:08:00 > 0:08:05suggesting that the cinema might be listed, the demolition men moved in.
0:08:08 > 0:08:11This opportunistic destruction is a chilling reminder
0:08:11 > 0:08:13of the power of market forces.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19Because of this building, Goldfinger, the very best of his sort,
0:08:19 > 0:08:23has become a whipping boy of the ferocious anti-modernists,
0:08:23 > 0:08:26restless in their determination to turn the clock back.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31Alexander Fleming House's problem is that it's out of fashion,
0:08:31 > 0:08:33in a style-conscious age.
0:08:38 > 0:08:41We hear a lot about a classical revival,
0:08:41 > 0:08:45yet here you have a modern building whose classical qualities
0:08:45 > 0:08:49of integrity, rationality and clarity
0:08:49 > 0:08:51are about to be destroyed.