The Elephant and Castle area of South London was substantially rebuilt after the Second World War, when it received bombardment from the Luftwaffe, suffering great damage and loss of life. Known as the “Piccadilly Circus of the South” in the interwar years, the area needed almost total rebuilding after 1945. This redevelopment, which took place from the 1950s through to the mid-1970s, created a panorama of post war modernism, much of which is now being erased by developers. After a redevelopment plan for the area was included in Patrick Abercrombie 1943 County of London Plan, London County Council planner Walter Bor oversaw a scheme for the existing roadway to be reorganised and widened and the adjoining land developed into housing, shops and a college, with work beginning in 1956 with revisions by Leslie Martin and then Hubert Bennett. The result was never greatly loved, and quite often reviled. Pevsner called it “one of the least loved creations in London” and Ian Nairn remarked that the designs all spoke of architecture as “a Deadly Serious Business” (his capitals). In the centre of the 1960s roundabout is the Electricity Substation, designed by Rodney Gordon whilst working for London County Council. The stainless steel box is supported by an oversailing column and beam frame. Gordon’s design originally had the box clad in glass revealing the workings of the transformer, but the fear of vandalism led to the change to steel. Gordon would soon after leave the LCC to go and work for Owen Luder, designing a series of buildings that combined offices, shops and flats such as Eros House in Lewisham. The substation was listed in June 1996. To the north east of this is Erno Goldfinger’s Alexander Fleming House (1962-67) office block, originally built as speculative offices and occupied by the Ministry of Health, now converted to apartments and renamed Metro Central Heights. Four tall blocks, linked by glass clad walkways are arranged around a central piazza with a reflecting pool, with a pub on the street side. Next to this was the Odeon Cinema, also designed by Goldfinger, a replacement for the Trocadero Cinema which was demolished for the new scheme. This cinema, now demolished itself, had a concrete and tile exterior with an auditorium to seat over 1000 customers under a cantilevered roof. The cinema closed in July 1988 and demolished a month later. The plot was used for car parking until a new block for Metro Central Heights was added in 2008. The former office block was listed Grade II in July 2013. Opposite this, another demolished building sat, the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, which was opened in 1965, and designed by Paul Boissevain and Barbara Osmond, who won the competition for the scheme over starrier names such as Erno Goldfinger, Owen Luder and Richard Seifert.. The centre consisted of a three storey shopping area and a ten storey office block, Hannibal House, above. The building was built in reinforced concrete with the exterior walls clad in plate glass with metal frames, with GRP cladding added to the first floor in 1975. The centre was home to 120 shops and had a two level underground car park. The office block initially struggled to attract tenants and was eventually rented by the Ministry of Works. The shopping centre was turned down for listing in 2018 and demolished three years later. The London County Council Architect’s Department also contributed a number of housing blocks to the area, such as Draper House and Perronet House. Draper House was built as part of the Draper Estate (1962-5), consisting of the 25-storey Draper House and four smaller blocks of 5 storeys, alongside a day centre. Castle House, a block of shops and offices, was also built as part of the scheme, and was praised by Ian Nairn, but was demolished to make way for the monumental Strata tower of 2007. Perronet House was built in 1969, overseen by Roger Walters of the Greater London Council Department of Architecture and Civic Design, as the department had become in 1965. The 11-storey block sits on the north east side of the roundabout, with the flats arranged in a split level scissor section over 10 floors with the ground floor made up of shops, which now house some of the traders displaced by the shopping centres demolition. The LCC also designed the London College of Communication (originally London College of Printing) with its 14 storey tower from 1961 and later extensions along Oswin Street that added angled windows, allowing more natural light into the design studios, quite possibly designed by the architect of Pimlico School, John Bancroft. A little to the east, the Heygate Estate built between 1970-1974, overseen by architect Tim Tinker alongside Rick Mather and John Kesteven for Southwark Council with over 1200 dwellings. The estate was made up of five 12 storey long straight blocks connected by walkways, with terraced housing and communal gardens in the centre. As with many estates of the era, like the nearby Aylesbury estate, a spiral of neglect and dilapidation led to the estate gaining a bad reputation, although this was rejected by many of the residents and the architect himself. Nevertheless it stuck and the New Labour era of regeneration saw the estate earmarked for demolition, with the building finally destroyed in 2014 after years of objections by residents.
The beginning of the 21st century saw the dreaded ”Masterplan” being drawn up for the area, with a budget of £1.5 billion set aside to redevelop the area. This entailed the demolition of many parts of the area's post war history, including the Heygate Estate, sections of the Draper estate and the Shopping Centre. In their place has emerged a slew of tall apartment blocks, with little or no social housing. Next to be redeveloped is the London College of Communication, which will move across the roundabout to part of the new shopping centre, leaving only a few remnants of the post war rebuilding of this area.
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