0:00:02 > 0:00:07BBC Four Collections - archive programmes chosen by experts.
0:00:07 > 0:00:10For this collection, Janet Street-Porter has selected
0:00:10 > 0:00:12programmes about post-war architecture.
0:00:12 > 0:00:15More programmes on this theme and other BBC Four Collections
0:00:15 > 0:00:17are available on BBC iPlayer.
0:00:35 > 0:00:39JANET STREET-PORTER: I'm so bored when I go to people's houses.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42You know where every bloody room's going to be. It's so predictable.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46So I didn't want to have a house that was anything to do with
0:00:46 > 0:00:48that crappy old English tradition of, you know,
0:00:48 > 0:00:51the front door's here and the lights are there,
0:00:51 > 0:00:52cos that's how they always have been.
0:01:01 > 0:01:05I studied architecture in the '60s with Piers Gough
0:01:05 > 0:01:09and I always wanted to live in a house that was designed
0:01:09 > 0:01:12by an architect who I admired.
0:01:12 > 0:01:16And I gave up architecture cos I wasn't going to be as good as Piers.
0:01:16 > 0:01:18I really rate him.
0:01:18 > 0:01:21Piers did a couple of designs for the house.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25This one was more elegant and it was also really spiky.
0:01:27 > 0:01:29I just thought it was a really tough designand, also,
0:01:30 > 0:01:32I didn't want a house that was too friendly.
0:01:32 > 0:01:34I didn't want a house that looked friendly -
0:01:35 > 0:01:37I wanted a house that looked quite hostile.
0:01:37 > 0:01:40I didn't want too many uninvited visitors.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43The building fundamentally looks like the client. If you were asked,
0:01:43 > 0:01:48"Who might this building belong to in London?"I think...
0:01:48 > 0:01:50you might guess.
0:01:50 > 0:01:52In fact, you WOULD guess that it was Janet.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55I wanted the house to be built in brick
0:01:55 > 0:01:59and I hit on this idea of having it in all different coloured bricks,
0:01:59 > 0:02:02so it looks as if a shadow's hit the building.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05It's a kind of trompe-l'oeil effect.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08So the bottom is darker and it gets paler as it goes up.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12PIERS: Unfortunately, some commentators have pointed out that...
0:02:12 > 0:02:13HECHUCKLES
0:02:13 > 0:02:17..it may look more like rising damp coming up the building
0:02:17 > 0:02:18than the sun coming down!
0:02:25 > 0:02:28JANET: I think the stairs seem like a Mexican house.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31They seem much more like an adobe house.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34They don't seem like a British house at all.
0:02:34 > 0:02:38It seems likeyou're in New Mexico or something.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42All the external doors look like railway sleepers
0:02:42 > 0:02:44and they have rope handles
0:02:44 > 0:02:48and they have fake medieval black nails in them.
0:02:48 > 0:02:52And all the internal doors are studded with the same black nails.
0:02:52 > 0:02:55It was supposed to look like that, kind of, Orson Welles...
0:02:55 > 0:02:57Not Citizen Kane but Chimes At Midnight -
0:02:58 > 0:03:00one of those, kind of, really crappy Orson Welles movies.
0:03:00 > 0:03:04And still on a B-movie theme, the front door is made of
0:03:04 > 0:03:07big, wooden timbers and it's got a rope handle
0:03:07 > 0:03:10and I asked for a spyhole so I couldlook at people.
0:03:10 > 0:03:12Only trouble is that what's the right height for me
0:03:12 > 0:03:15is about a foot higher than anybody else standing outside.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27All the rooms on all the floors are different shapes
0:03:27 > 0:03:31and none of them are boxed-in square. I hate that more than anything.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35This is my bedroom and before we'd even bought the land
0:03:35 > 0:03:39or decided what the house would look like, I started to buy pictures.
0:03:39 > 0:03:41I've collected things for years and years
0:03:41 > 0:03:45but I started to collect pictures and I had a really clear idea in my mind
0:03:45 > 0:03:47of what I wanted my bedroom to be like.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50These are neoclassical engravings by Piranesi.
0:03:50 > 0:03:56They're not of views of Rome, which is what most people know of his work.
0:03:56 > 0:04:00They're of classical urns. They're very restful.
0:04:00 > 0:04:01And my bed is on a trolley.
0:04:01 > 0:04:03It's on the kind of trolley
0:04:03 > 0:04:05that British Rail deliver all their parcels on.
0:04:05 > 0:04:08It's got wheels and a brake, of course,
0:04:08 > 0:04:13so that I can turn it and look at different bits of my pictures,
0:04:13 > 0:04:15according to what my mood is, or I could look out the window.
0:04:15 > 0:04:17And all the windows are different shapes.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20So it's all full of things to look at.
0:04:22 > 0:04:27I wanted a bath that was made out of rock. Nobody would build it.
0:04:27 > 0:04:28And then I had a little think about it
0:04:28 > 0:04:31and we ordered just the most giant bath I could get in there.
0:04:31 > 0:04:34And then I really liked the standpipe so I thought,
0:04:34 > 0:04:37"What do I want a tap for? It's just kind of funky.
0:04:38 > 0:04:42So the bathroom look is kind of... It's supposed to be a joke.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45Like, it's not finished, but it's not meant to be.
0:04:45 > 0:04:47That's why the carpet stops short of the bath
0:04:47 > 0:04:48and there are all the rocks under it.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59There's a lot of steelwork in the house and it's all galvanised
0:04:59 > 0:05:03so I wanted the kitchen to have the same kind of steel look about it,
0:05:03 > 0:05:06so we painted the cupboards with Hammerite so they looked,
0:05:06 > 0:05:08kind of, a bit wrecked.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11It's got steel worktops and I used
0:05:11 > 0:05:151.99 little galvanised lintel-forming things
0:05:15 > 0:05:20to make shelves formy collection of fish plates and fish moulds.
0:05:21 > 0:05:23And when they were doing the walls,
0:05:23 > 0:05:26they put this steel mesh up before they plastered it
0:05:26 > 0:05:30and I thought it looked fabulous so I didn't bother plastering the kitchen.
0:05:30 > 0:05:31That's the kind of look.
0:05:31 > 0:05:36In fact, we put extra mesh up to make it look extra wrecked.
0:05:36 > 0:05:40Outside here is the balcony, where I sit and have my breakfast
0:05:40 > 0:05:43and get laughed at by lots of meat porters.
0:05:43 > 0:05:44MAN: Hello, Janet!
0:05:48 > 0:05:51The point of the living room is really just to create a space
0:05:51 > 0:05:54that's very comfortable and not forbidding, cos I think
0:05:54 > 0:05:57a lot of architect-designed houses look very cold.
0:05:59 > 0:06:01We bought a wood-burning stove
0:06:01 > 0:06:04and I decided to put it in front of the windows,
0:06:04 > 0:06:08so that when you were sitting on the sofayou lookedout the window
0:06:08 > 0:06:11and you had the fire, rather than the traditional way of looking at a wall,
0:06:11 > 0:06:13which I thought was rather boring.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17The radiators are all turned on their sides,
0:06:17 > 0:06:19so that instead of being rather dreary objects
0:06:19 > 0:06:22that sit along a non-existent skirting board,
0:06:22 > 0:06:26they stand upright like columns and they become features in the room.
0:06:26 > 0:06:29I mean, they work just as well. They make quite a lot of gurgling
0:06:29 > 0:06:32but they send out the same amount of heat.
0:06:32 > 0:06:36And I also wanted to have a wooden floor that looked like a log jam
0:06:36 > 0:06:41coming through the big window ofpieces of wood, just set randomly,
0:06:41 > 0:06:44splaying out from the window in the concrete,
0:06:44 > 0:06:46a bit like this woodcut over here.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50But, unfortunately, English craftsmen aren't quite up to this just yet.
0:06:50 > 0:06:55So what I've ended up with is a parquet rug.It's like a real rug.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57It's got a border all the way round.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00The advantage of it over a real rug is that the corners don't curl up.
0:07:02 > 0:07:04It's OK. It's not what I really wanted.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16I said to Piers that I wanted to have the office at the top of the house
0:07:16 > 0:07:20and then we put this steel staircase upthe back, both as a fire escape
0:07:20 > 0:07:23and it's the only access to the office.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26Now, that means that people can come and see me up here
0:07:26 > 0:07:30without going in the house and I like the idea of going out to go to work.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33'You know, even getting wet in the rain doesn't bother me.
0:07:33 > 0:07:35'So it's completely self-contained up here.'
0:07:35 > 0:07:38Presentation - I know that. Paul...
0:07:38 > 0:07:41Well, at the moment, Paul McCartney's only approved three tracks.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44'I can't remember how long it took to build the house.'
0:07:44 > 0:07:48About nine months longer than it was meant to.
0:07:48 > 0:07:50People have said, "Was it like having a baby?"
0:07:50 > 0:07:52But as I haven't had a baby, I wouldn't really know.
0:07:52 > 0:07:56I suppose it was a bit like giving birth to that alien in Alien,
0:07:56 > 0:07:59when it bursts out of John Hurt's chest!
0:07:59 > 0:08:02That might be more appropriate.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05There were terrible things happen, like the spiral staircase arrived and
0:08:05 > 0:08:08it ended up turning the wrong way so you couldn't get off at this floor.
0:08:08 > 0:08:11So people make mistakes. Human beings do, you know.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15Has she never had to send a letter back to be typed again?
0:08:15 > 0:08:16You know, really!
0:08:16 > 0:08:18Most architects live in old houses.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21Even the architect that designed this house doesn't live in a modern house.
0:08:21 > 0:08:25And I think that unless you patronise modern architecture
0:08:25 > 0:08:29and make a very positive statement, nobody will respond to it.
0:08:29 > 0:08:31You've just got to be so proud of it and stick up for it,
0:08:32 > 0:08:34cos it's had such a bad press,
0:08:34 > 0:08:37and you have to show people that it's really great to live with.
0:08:37 > 0:08:39It's just terrific.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41It's much more enjoyable living here
0:08:41 > 0:08:45than in some fake Georgian house or in some nasty little box.