Hauer-King House Building Sights

BBC Four Collections - archive programmes chosen by experts.

For this collection, Janet Street-Porter has selected

programmes about Post-War Architecture.

More programmes on this theme and other BBC Four Collections

are available on BBC iPlayer.

The whole story of this house is that it doesn't really want to be here.

In no time at all, you can pass from a transparent wall at the front...

..to a transparent wall at the back.

And there's not much in-between.

So, really, the architects of this house wish it to be invisible.

That's an important idea, and a very old one,

in as much that many architects have been fascinated

by the dream of Adam's house in Paradise,

where people will live under the stars, under the sky,

under the moon, without going to all the trouble of building a house.

They live in nature.

And, of course, if it didn't rain,

and if it wasn't cold in this country,

you wouldn't need a house at all.

In spite of the long, raking glass wall at the back,

the house occupies a thin sliver of land,

no bigger at the front than what's required for

the average terraced house -

the genre to which this building ultimately belongs.

You can see, from the blank walls on either side,

evidence of an older, pre-existing structure,

within which the new one neatly sits.

It's important for me to touch things.

I like to know that what I'm looking at is really solid,

and real.

And in this case, it is - this is real stainless steel.

The house has only just been finished.

The front garden has yet to go in.

I'm not sure what's going to go here,

but one imagines that it could be some stones, or perhaps water,

something that really fills this part-public, part-private space.

There is no front fence.

This ramp obviously came after the tree,

so it was important that it had to snake round.

And, in a way, this sort of accident,

of having to force your way, squeeze your way past the tree,

has given the form to the ramp.

You enter the house into what is normally called the corridor,

or the front hall.

But here, it goes up the whole height of the house,

which is very, very important,

because it acts as a sort of buffer zone - but a fantastic buffer zone.

Stacked up on each floor,

and dividing the space from the rest of the house,

are what look like large pieces of furniture

or cabins, which contain the wet services like lavatories and showers,

not to mention cupboards and so on.

After you've entered the house at street level, and passed beyond

the divider and into the sitting room,

you realise that you're not on the ground floor at all,

but the first.

The full or semi-basement being one of the constant historical features

of the two-up, two-down terraced house.

If it wasn't for the metal lip making complete separation

between wall and ceiling,

the ceiling would be practically disembodied.

The paint's gloss finish and the way it curves

add to the light-reflective quality,

and lead the eye into the beyond of the adjoining space.

Fetishistic detailing can easily detract

from a good simple structure, but not here.

Smooth steps on the inside,

grooved on the outside, to give you a bit more grip on those icy mornings -

the functional has a joy to it.

Like the dominant number on the front door,

and the letter box with bristles to keep out the wind.

The door - often the weak link in the external structure -

is here the most solid bit.

The kitchen is reduced down,

almost to a single object which doesn't want to touch the walls

and looks as if you could move it if you wanted to.

This kitchen-come-dayroom

flows out into the garden.

Here, white ceramic dots are the link

in this house's constant urge to be inside-out.

It's like being on the bridge of a ship.

Looking out here, you're high enough to see over to

the National Westminster tower,

from Earl's Court to Southend, almost.

That's the way you feel.

It's fantastic!

More importantly, you can see the weather coming in from the west.

So you can stand up here and decide what you're going to wear in the day.

All over the country,

there are people having spent lots and lots of money

on very expensive bathroom fittings,

as though one's going to spend hour after hour in there...doing what?

I do not know.

This is my type of bathroom.

You come in, do what you have to do, and get out!

At night, a good house feels very different to its daytime self.

Without the blinds down, the long, raking back wall holds

some extraordinary angled reflections.

# Encasing all-embracing wreath of repose

# Engulfs all the senses

# Imposing, unclosing thoughts that compose

# Retire the fences... #

You see an unfamiliar, strange house.

# ..life fades away... #

I might go mad if I couldn't step out of this alternative reality,

and remind myself of the room beyond - the garden.

And beyond that, the terraces of Islington.

This area is practically synonymous with gentrification,

that process which took off in the '60s,

when the middle classes discovered just what could be done with

the humble two-up, two-down terraced house -

the design solution for cheap housing, dreamt up

during the Industrial Revolution not by architects, but by builders.

So, once many of the artisans and working classes

had left the inner city for the lure of Essex,

the middle classes rolled their sleeves up,

and moved in en masse.

This is the context in which our glass house must be judged,

not as art, as architectural news,

but as an exciting new interpretation

of the basic two-up, two-down.