Tower block
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A tower block, block of flats, or apartment block, is a multi-unit high-rise apartment building. In some areas they may be referred to as MDU standing for Multi Dwelling Unit.[citation needed]
Apartment blocks have technical and economic advantages in areas with high population density. They have become a distinguished form of housing accommodation in virtually all densely populated urban areas around the world. In contrast with low-rise and single-family houses, apartment blocks accommodate more inhabitants per unit of area of land they occupy and also decrease the cost of municipal infrastructure.
[edit] Apartment blocks around the world
[edit] United Kingdom
Tower blocks were first built in the UK after the Second World War. The first residential tower block, "The Lawn" was constructed in Harlow, Essex in 1951; it is now a Grade II listed building. In many cases Tower Blocks were seen as a "quick-fix" to cure problems caused by crumbling and unsanitary 19th century dwellings or to replace buildings destroyed by German aerial bombing. Initially, they were welcomed, and their excellent views made them popular living places. Later, as the buildings themselves deteriorated, they grew a reputation for being undesirable low cost housing, and many tower blocks saw rising crime levels, increasing their unpopularity. One response to this was the great increase in the number of housing estates built, which in turn brings its own problems. In the UK, tower blocks particularly lost popularity after the partial collapse of Ronan Point in 1968. Some say the city of Glasgow in Scotland contains the highest concentration of tower blocks in the UK - examples include the Hutchensontown C blocks in the Gorbals, the 20-storey blocks in Sighthill, and the 31-storey Red Road flats in the city's north east. However, on the whole, London has the largest amount of high-rise residential buildings in the UK.
In recent years, some council or ex-council high-rises in the United Kingdom, including Trellick Tower, Keeling House, Perronet House and The Barbican Estate, have become popular with young professionals due to their excellent views, desirable locations and architectural pedigrees, and now command high prices. After a gap of around 30 years, new high-rise flats are once again being built in Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Cardiff, Liverpool, London, and Manchester; but this time for wealthy professionals, rather than the `lower classes`. Their developers market these properties by using the American term 'apartment buildings', perhaps in an effort to distance these newer buildings from the older tower blocks from the 1950s and '60s.
[edit] United States
In the United States tower blocks are commonly referred to as midrise or highrise apartment buildings, depending on their height, while buildings that house fewer flats (apartments), or are not as tall as the tower blocks, are called lowrise apartment buildings.
Some of the first residential towers were the Castle Village towers in New York City completed in 1939. Their cross-shaped design was copied in towers in Parkchester and Stuyvesant Town residential developments.
The government's experiments in the 1960s and 70s to use high-rise apartments as a means of providing the housing solution for the poor resulted in a spectacular failure. All but a few high-rise housing projects in the nation's largest cities, such as Cabrini-Green and Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago, Penn South in New York and the Desire projects in New Orleans, fell victim to the "ghettofication" and are now being torn down, renovated, or replaced.
In contrast to their public housing cousins, commercially developed high-rise apartment buildings continue to flourish in cities around the country largely due to high land prices and the housing boom of the 2000s. The Upper East Side in New York City and Chicago's Gold Coast, both featuring high-rise apartments, are the wealthiest urban neighborhoods in the United States.
[edit] Ireland
[edit] Republic
Tower Blocks are called flat blocks in Ireland. Most of the flats in the country are in Dublin, typically but not exclusively found on the northside of the city, in such areas such as Ballymun, Dublin's inner-city and Coolock. Crime and drug abuse problems are very common in these areas, these problems also exist in flatted areas of Cork City such as Blackpool. Over the last five years the largest cities such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway have witnessed apartment building. Some large Towns such as Navan, Drogheda and Mullingar have also witnessed lots of apartments being built.
[edit] Northern Ireland
Tower blocks in Northern Ireland were never built to the frequency as they were in other cities in Britain and Ireland. Most tower blocks and flat complexes are found in Belfast and Derry, although many of these have been demolished in recent years and replaced with traditional public housing units. The Divis flats complex in west Belfast was built in between 1968 and 1972 was demolished in the early 1990s as the residents demanded new houses due to mounting problems with the flats. Divis Tower, built separately in 1966 still stands however, and in 2007 work began to convert the British Army base at the top 2 floors into new dwellings.
In the north of the City the iconic 7 towers complex in the New Lodge remains, although so too the problems that residents face, such as poor piping and inadequate sanitation. Further north the 4 tower blocks in Rathcoole still dominate the local skyline, while in south Belfast the tower blocks in Seymour Hill also remain standing.
[edit] Eastern Europe and Russia
- See also: Panelák and Plattenbau
[edit] Post Cold-War buildup
Russia is currently undergoing a dramatic buildout, growing a commercially-shaped skyline that wasn't possible under communism.
[edit] Middle East
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[edit] South America
The planned city of Brasilia, capital city of Brazil, was created as a vision of Le Corbusier, and includes some of the most (in)famous apartment block architecture in the world.
[edit] Asia
The unpopularity of tower blocks in Europe is in marked contrast to many Asian countries.
In South Korea the tower blocks are called Apartment Complex (Apartment Danji). The first residential towers began to be built after the Korean War. The South Korean government needed to build many apartment complexes in the cities to be able to accommodate the citizens. In the years 70 as the population increased considerably, tower blocks have become more common. This time however the new tower blocks integrated shopping malls, parking system and other convenient facilities.
In Singapore and urban Hong Kong, land prices are so high that almost the entire population lives in high-rise apartments. In fact, over 60% of Hong Kong residents live in apartments, many of them condominiums. Tower Palace in Seoul, South Korea, is the tallest apartment complex in Asia.
[edit] Australia
High-rise living in Australia was limited to small pockets of bohemian inner Sydney until the 1960s, where a short-lived fashion saw public housing tenants located in new high-rise developments, especially in Sydney and Melbourne. Due to the stigma these enormous and impersonal developments gained, high-rise living fell out of favour until a new wave of developments aimed at the affluent inner urban middle class began from the 1970s onwards. Developers have enthusiastically adopted the term 'apartment' for these new high-rise blocks, perhaps to avoid the stigma still attached to housing commission flats.
[edit] References
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[edit] See also
- Brutalist architecture - an architectural style spawned by the modernist architectural movement and which flourished from the 1950s to the 1970s.
- Gemeindebau - large scale public housing in Austria
- Prefabrication
- Falowiec - an example in Gdansk, Poland
- Panelák - the equivalent in Czechoslovakia
- Plattenbau - the equivalent in East Germany
- Cutie de chibrituri - meaning Matchboxes in Romanian is the equivalent in Romania
