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The case for listing the Brownfield Estate grade 2* in the context of Goldfinger’s work
The Brownfield Estate - or specifically the parts of it known to their architect Ernö Goldfinger RA as Rowlett Street Housing Phases I, II, and III – is partially listed Grade 2, and it is here proposed that it be listed at Grade 2* in its entirety. It was built between 1965 and 1975 as social housing for the London County Council (succeeded by the Greater London Council after 1965), and is the most unaltered example remaining of Goldfinger's housing design.  Indeed, now that his earlier housing at Abbotts Langley has been largely demolished (2009), it represents one of only two public housing complexes of his that survive, the other being the Cheltenham (or Edenham) Estate in North Kensington around and including 31-storey Trellick Tower, which is now wholly Grade 2*-listed including specifically all the ancillary buildings around the Tower. But the earlier demolition of much of the parking structure with its roof top garden and of the Old People's Home, both central to the Edenham Estate, as well as the radical alteration of many of the terrace houses, has damaged its overall integrity as an urban or architectural complex. By contrast there has been no such demolition at the Brownfield Estate; furthermore, the 'forecourt' of 26-storey Balfron Tower, framed by the 2-storey Old People's Housing on one side (both Phase I) and by 11-storey Carradale House (Phase II) on the other, together with the Community building and shop block free-standing within it, retains its full integrity and constitutes one of the great urban spaces in London.

Indeed it is the most unaltered complex of Goldfinger buildings of all kinds. Of his two major non-housing projects, his recently part-listed work at the Elephant and Castle is much altered and part-demolished, and his Haggerston School has also been transformed by painting, various extensions, and the general replacement of original fenestration. As explained earlier, Balfron Tower currently faces comprehensive renovation by a private developer and it seems highly desirable that it should be listed at a grade at least as high as the Edenham Estate, i.e. at Grade 2*, rather than simply at Grade 2 as at present, to ensure the involvement of English Heritage and the careful attention to accuracy in all detail. The ancillary buildings and the spaces and hard landscaping need also to be included specifically in any listing (whereas they are not currently) since they play a critical role in the 'architectural drama' and the sculptural modelling of the surface of the ground; both contribute fundamentally to the architectural potency of the Estate. Arguably the social purpose of this housing, reflecting Goldfinger’s life-long closeness to Socialist groups, and the social elements in the design, should also be reflected in the listing, as it is in the list description of Lubektin and Tecton’s Finsbury Health Centre. Finally, the whole of the third Phase of Goldfinger's work on the Brownfield Estate, presently unlisted, needs to be brought into the listing, as will be argued below.

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Rowlett Street Housing Phase I, Brownfield Estate
Balfron Tower, the principal element of Phase I, was built 1965-7. It effectively doubled the size of the abortive Abbotts Langley block of ten years earlier, being 26 storeys high, and has six rather than four units on each floor (146 in total).  Moreover, the spatial potential of the design is more fully articulated by the wide separation introduced between the lift tower and the main block. This allows delivery or refuse vehicles to make a complete circuit of it from entry to exit as well as ensuring isolation of the residential part of the block from lift and other mechanical noises. But it also creates the highly distinctive bi-partite composition with the circulation tower - topped by the lift motor room, boiler house, and tank rooms - rising considerably higher than the accommodation tower.  In overall size and proportion, but not in plan, Balfron is similar to the block first sketched in 1931. Internally, the relatively wide frontage of each flat (22’, increased to 22’11” in Carradale House – both a multiple of Goldfinger’s standard planning module of 11”) brings with it a generous sense of light and space. The ingeniously interlocked stairs rise or descend to the access galleries from within the central zone of each flat, and their carefully considered layouts have proven very popular with residents. Externally, the broad frontage leads to a shallow depth and generated the exceptionally slender profile of the tower which is one of its most exciting aspects. 

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Goldfinger’s social attitudes and the social history of Balfron Tower 
The early social history of Balfron Tower is noteworthy. Families living in the houses taken for the Blackwall Tunnel Approach roads and in unsuitable accommodation (often a consequence of the Blitz) were re-housed street by street. Of the 160 families housed, only two came from outside of Tower Hamlets, and former neighbours were rehoused in flats sharing a common access gallery, so as to maintain community spirit. Goldfinger received international publicity for staying with his wife in one of the flats in Balfron when it was first occupied.  He did so for eight weeks, from February to April 1968, so as to document many aspects of life there, and assess them for himself; these included the adequacy of the lifts and the heating, whether the wind noise was excessive, and how well the windows worked. He was by this time 65 years old. His wife Ursula diligently compiled records of her own experience and of conversations with residents, about which an article was later published in the Twentieth Century Society Journal. Based on his experiences and residents’ feedback, Goldfinger wrote a report for the GLC. He also established a strong relationship with residents, who made him an honorary member of the Tenants’ Association. His request for permission to stay in Balfron was made privately, as can be seen from the surviving correspondence; it was the GLC that chose to give it publicity, under their Housing Committee Chairman Horace Cutler – who was a Conservative but nevertheless, it would appear, a keen supporter of Goldfinger. 

It should be remembered that Goldfinger was both architect of the headquarters of the Communist Party of Great Britain, in King Street, Covent Garden (1946), and a good friend of its Secretary-General Harry Pollitt (as is evident from correspondence in the RIBA Archive), and also architect of a substantial building for the party’s newspaper the Daily Worker, in Farringdon Road (also 1946). Both have since been demolished, but as commissions they testify to his sympathy with socialist thinking. Although he was apparently never a member of any Communist party himself, in France he had been an active member of the communist-linked Association of Revolutionary Writers and Artists. The social agenda of Balfron Tower is explicit, the format is that of a community, rather than simply of a stack of housing units, with a defined centre (implied by the expressed row of 6-person maisonettes at mid-height), and with extensive social facilities – laundry rooms, hobby rooms, community rooms, nursery - in the circulation tower and in the ‘parterre’ in front of the Tower. The open space is communal and the service towers and their connecting bridges represent and generate new ways of communal interaction, providing facilities and spaces for different age groups and opening to nine access corridors which maximise the number of front doors and opportunities for social engagement. It would therefore be regrettable if the Tower were to be converted into just more housing units on the private open market – as is in prospect: its architectural ‘message’ would be compromised. 

The Brownfield Estate in the context of the Modern Movement 
As a composition as a whole, Goldfinger’s Brownfield Estate reflects the Modern Movement ideal embodied in Le Corbusier’s slogan ‘Soleil, Espace, Verdure’ (Sun, Space, Greenery) – the belief that by building taller but without necessarily much increasing the density these conditions could be obtained for the mass of the population. Architecturally this policy would create dramatic spaces, wide views, ample sunlight, privacy, and wide areas of green space at ground level, which could in turn be exploited as a sculptural surface. In all probability, with the Edenham Estate, this is the most forceful and convincing demonstration and example of this design philosophy in the UK. It is for this reason that all the spaces, incidental details of hard landscaping, and minor buildings between the main buildings are of equal importance to the main buildings themselves, and should therefore be explicitly included in the listing description. A further characteristic of Goldfinger’s work is that his office was always small and that he designed everything himself – books of standard office details were built up over time, which assistants were expected to follow (or woe betide them). The elegance of details such as window frames, specially made to his designs, is critical to the overall effect.

Goldfinger always maintained that he designed his social housing ‘for himself’ – as he would for himself to live in. But by the time Balfron Tower was complete the climate of architectural opinion in Britain had moved sharply away from high-rise social housing of any form and it did not receive wide publicity except that resulting from Goldfinger’ stay there. Balfron reflected ideas that had been developed 35- 40 years earlier, designed by an architect who both understood their origins because he had been present at their birth, and had had time to become their master.