"In Craven Hill Gardens the mood is disturbed by
Cottingham [sic], a tall eight-storey concrete block of
private flats, by Kenneth Frampton of Douglas Stephen &
Partners, 1961-61."
[Nikolaus Pevsner, Bridget Cherry: "The buildings of
England: London 3 - North West", Penguin Books, 1991,
p.690]
"Corringham is the best of a group of London flats by an
interesting young architectural practice (…). It is of
exceptional interest for the complex and adventurous
planning of the 48 flats and maisonettes within the
block, and for the boldness of the external envelope,
rare in private flats. (…) No other distinguished blocks
of flats were built in this manner, and it remains the
best and clearest example of the genre. (…) Though it
is radically different from the big stuccoed terraces
all around it, Corringham now seems to fit in with its
neighbours by virtue of its scale and discipline. It
offers the opportunity to live in very light, bright
surroundings in the heart of a historic area. Above all,
Corringham is interesting because it took an idea
devised for public housing and showed that, with a little
more careful design, and by using simple materials well,
it could be adapted to a successful and luxurious
private scheme in a sought-after location."
[English Heritage, listing recommendation report, 1996]
"Corringham was one of the most elaborately planned
private blocks of its day, and is perhaps unique in
employing the scissor section. (…) Corringham is thus a
rare example of its adoption, and architecturally the
most articulate. No other private flats were so
ambitious in their planning. (…) Frampton's involvement
is particularly noteworthy in what is perhaps the firm's
most coherent design of the period and certainly their
most interesting"
[Department for Culture Media and Sport, official listing
documentation, 1998]
"In recent years the approach to Craven Hill Gardens from
Leinster Terrace has been despoiled by the erection of
a tall, flat-sided piece of 'modernism' slap in this
heartland of early 19th century design. At its side it
brazenly highlights two hideous ventilators, in the
best-worst Corbusier manner. The structure's life,
fortunately, is liable to be brief."
[John Wittich, James Dowsing: "Guide to Bayswater;
Upstairs and Downstairs", Sunrise Press, 1997
(last edition 2002)]
"Each dwelling, a compact one or two-bedroom unit,
spans four levels, each with a half-storey difference
in height. The homes are interlinked like a complex
puzzle. Corringham also stands out for the carefully
detailed curtain wall that betrays nothing of the
complex layout inside. Facing the garden each dwelling
has a small loggia, which can be accessed from the
bedroom(s). The street elevation is entirely smooth
and extremely neutral, in stark contrast with the
extremely sculptural, almost brutalist detached
lift core and stairwell."
[Dick van Gameren: "Efficiency through Complexity",
Delft Architectural Studies on Housing (DASH04),
"The Residential Floor Plan - Standard and Ideal",
2011, pp.48-57]
Corringham was mentioned in a publication by Ally
Capellino, a British designer of bags and accessories
with a shop in nearby Portobello. The 2014 designs are
inspired by the "simple reduced lines, subtle colour
and sparing use of sharp details" of London's
brutalist architecture. Corringham is listed as one
of the relevant buildings, with a comment about
its style and significance by Oliver Wainwright,
architecture correspondent of The Guardian at the time
of writing:
"One of the only built works of prolific architectural
historian and theorist Kenneth Frampton, Craven Hill
Gardens represents his interest in the 'Neue
Sachlichkeit', or New Objectivity – a sense of
no-nonsense practicality that originated in Weimar
Germany. With an exposed white concrete frame and
grey concrete infill, it has a sober rigour to its
proportions, while the rear elevation is livened up
by recessed balconies and mirror-backed window
panels."
[Oliver Wainwright: "Ally Capellino catalogue,
Autumn and Winter 2014", 2014, p.22]
The front of Corringham briefly appears as a backdrop
in the 2018 BBC series
A Very English Scandal
set in the 1960s and 1970s.
In 2019, the Sir John Soane Museum in London dedicated its
yearly Soane Medal & Lecture to the legacy of Kenneth
Frampton. One of the presentations was given by the
architect's friend and former colleague John Miller.
He says about Corringham: "It is a remarkable work. The
exterior of the eight-storey apartment building is strikingly
rational, with six stacks of recessed balconies to both long
elevations. At the end of the building is a highly
articulated entrance core and lift, and stair access tower.
The entrance core is ‘tethered’ to the surrounding pavement
by a narrow, covered ramp that runs up to the street.
In those days, you could imagine a resident arriving on a
rainy evening by taxi and making the walk to their door
without ever feeling a drop. Instead of external access
galleries, so characteristic of current high-rise practice
at the time, Ken proposed wide central ‘public’ corridors,
which run the length of the building, from the lift and
stair tower to an escape stair at the other end. This is
essentially a reference Le Corbusier, and more specifically,
the section of the Unité d’habitation. It is ingenious if
complex, and unexpected in the context of the rationalism
of the exterior. As students at the AA, ten years before,
we had been obsessed with ‘half level’ planning. The
advantage was thought to be the omission of ‘dogleg’ stairs
and half landings. This enabled spaces to easily ‘swim’
into one another, by means of short single flights. (...)
Craven Hill Gardens was completed nearly sixty years ago.
It is an impressive work, which I continue to admire, and
it richly deserves its 1998 Grade II listing."
[John Miller: "Five Voices: On Kenneth Frampton", 2019.
Website of the Sir John Soane's Museum, London]
