A Tower block, Apartment tower, or Apartment block, Block of flats, is a multi-unit high-rise Apartment building. In some areas they may be referred to as "MDU" standing for "Multi Dwelling Unit". 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.

Europe

Ancient Rome

Insulae (singular insula) were large apartment buildings where the Plebs (lower class) and Equates (middle class) of Romans dwelled. The floor at ground level was used for tabernas, shops and businesses with living space on the higher floors. These buildings were usually up to six or seven stories. Some went as high as nine stories before height restrictions came into effect.

United Kingdom

Tower blocks were 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. Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland, is believed to contain 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 number of high-rise residential buildings in the UK.

The post-war British tower block vision:

Post-war Britain was the stage for a tower block building ‘boom’; from the 1950s to the late 1970s there was a dramatic increase in tower block construction. During this time, local authorities desired to impress their voters by building futuristic and imposing tower blocks, which would signify post-war progress. Both Patrick Dunleavy and Lynsey Hanley agree that architects and planners were influenced by Le Corbusier’s promotion of high-rise architecture. The modern tower blocks were to include features that would foster desired forms of resident interaction, an example being the inclusion of Le Corbusier’s ‘streets in the sky’ in some estates.

As well as inspiring residents, local authority planners believed that the way tower blocks were constructed would save money. Generally, the tower blocks were built on cheap greenfield land skirting established cities. Although the property prices for these periphery sites were markedly cheaper than their inner city counterparts, they often had little access to public amenities, such as public transport. It was thought that the implementation of industrialised building techniques would lower costs too, as similar tower blocks would be replicated over many sites. Uniform and standardised parts, such as toilet fittings and door handles, would be fitted throughout many tower blocks – planners deemed that buying in bulk would reduce overall costs.

Another key aspect of the tower block vision was the ‘Brutalist’ architectural method, popular with architects and planners at the time. The Brutalist emphasis led to the construction of stark and striking tower blocks with large sections of exposed concrete . Concrete was to be an integral part of the tower block designs; it could be poured on site, offering boundless flexibility to the building designers. To the planners, concrete was a silver bullet for the construction process – it was economical, and ‘was vaunted as being long-lasting, if not indestructible’.

The post war British tower block reality:

Coleman’s 1985 work argues that in trying to emulate Le Corbusier’s ideas, the tower block planners only succeeded in encouraging social problems.Although architects and local authorities intended the opposite, tower blocks quickly became, as Hanley sharply stated, ‘slums in the sky’. Due to demanding deadlines, complicated construction practices were rushed and many tower blocks experienced structural decay as a result – roofs leaked, concrete suffered ‘spalling’, steel corroded, and damp penetrated the buildings. Unfortunately, by replicating tower blocks across the nation, planners ‘disastrously’ replicated design faults. In many tower blocks, concrete quickly exhibited signs of decay; cracks soon formed and destabilised the buildings. The partial collapse of the Ronan Point tower block is an infamous example of the hasty and substandard construction that occurred in a number of the towers. The tower blocks quickly lost their ‘futuristic’ look; concrete turned from the crisp white the designers had imagined to a dull grey, stained by pollution.

Poor design decisions ruined the anticipated benefits of the buildings. Open spaces, which were supposed to benefit the residents, were instead unattractive, unused and inadequately supervised. Residents felt it was difficult to maintain the large open spaces around the blocks because they realistically belonged to no one. Social problems increased as the tower blocks quickly degraded through poor maintenance and an insecure communal environment. Apart from frequent break-downs, communal lifts were a source of fear for people travelling alone. It was a rarity to ‘enter a clean-smelling, undefaced lift’. The tower blocks, many of which were located on the periphery of the city, made residents feel isolated and cut off from society. Outsiders and newcomers were also affected; they felt the overbearing design of the tower blocks made them fearsome and unsociable.

Power argues that as a direct consequence of their design and construction, security problems were prevalent in many of the tower blocks. Break-ins, vandalism and muggings were common, which were aided by the buildings’ concealed areas, the mazes of internal corridors, and dark corners. Police were often required in the tower blocks, but their infrequent presence did little to pacify towers rife with delinquency.In order to contain disruptive behaviour, local authorities began to place ‘problem families’ in the same blocks; Hanley argues that this policy only led to ‘further alienation …nihilism and a creeping sense of lawlessness’. Dunleavy seconds this, suggesting that the mental health of long term tower block residents may have been detrimentally affected.

While local authorities and their architects intended to create tower blocks that encouraged harmonious and vibrant communities, often the results were far from ideal. Post-war tower blocks were compromised from the outset by a combination of faults: local authorities advocated impractical architectural methods; design and construction faults were frequently reproduced; and there appeared to be a lack of understanding about the social consequences of certain design features. Collectively, these oversights transformed many tower blocks into undesirable places to live.

Towards the present day:

In recent years, some council or ex-council high-rises in the United Kingdom, including Trellick Tower, Keeling House, Sivill 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. There are plans to redevelop the Little London and Lovell Park areas on the fringes of Leeds city centre into luxury flats for 'Young Urban Professionals'. The plans entail demolishing all of the council housing and refurbishing the highrise flats. This demand has lead to many councils rethinking plans regarding their demolition.

After a gap of around 30 years, new high-rise flats are once again being built in Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Newcastle; 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 1960s. These are usually taller than their older counterparts and generally built in and around these provincial city centres. They are often glass and aluminum clad. Tonight with Trevor McDonald highlighted that in Leeds and Manchester (perhaps the cities that had seen most development) only approximately half were occupied and with owner occupation often being as low as 10%.

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 former British Army base at the top two 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. Farther 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.

Republic of Ireland

Tower Blocks are called flats in Ireland. Most of the flats in the country are in Dublin. All of Dublin's flat complexes were built by Dublin Corporation as part of Dublin slum clearances and to solve the housing problem. Flats such as Liberty House and the now-demolished Sheriff Street flats, both in North Inner City, Dublin, were built as early as the 1930s. Ballymun Flats were built between 1966 and 1969 consisting of seven 15-storey towers, nineteen 8 storey blocks and ten 4 storey blocks. Inner Dublin flat complexs include Sheriff Street (demolished), Fatima Mansions (demolished and redeveloped), St. Joseph's Gardens (demolished; replaced by Killarney Court flat complex), St. Teresa's Gardens, Dolphin House, Liberty House, St. Michael's Estate and O' Devaney Gardens and a lot more mainly throughout the North and South Inner City of Dublin. Suburban flat complexs were built exclusively on the northside of the city in Ballymun, Coolock and Kilbarrack. These flats were badly affected by a heroin epidemic that hit working-class areas of Dublin in the 1980s and early 90s.

Over the last five years the largest cities such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway have witnessed new large apartment building. Some large Towns such as Navan, Drogheda,Dundalk and Mullingar have also witnessed lots of modern apartments being built.

Eastern Europe and Russia

Russia is currently undergoing a dramatic buildout, growing a commercially-shaped skyline. Unfortunatly Russians, both poor and wealthy, from Soviet time had conserved the impression of luxury about Tower blocks itself, nevertheless of its true value for money and cosy positure. They are, in general, of strong opinion that TB appartments predominate's any other sort of dwelling.

Middle East

Egypt

In Roman Egypt seven-storey buildings existed as early as the 3rd century AD in provincial towns such as Hermopolis. The medieval Egyptian city of Fustat housed many high-rise residential buildings, some seven stories tall that could reportedly accommodate hundreds of people. Al-Muqaddasi in the 10th century described them as resembling minarets, while Nasir Khusraw in the early 11th century described some of them rising up to 14 stories, with roof gardens on the top storey complete with ox-drawn water wheels for irrigating them.

In Arab Egypt, the initial capital city was Fustat. It housed many high-rise residential buildings, some seven stories tall that could reportedly accommodate hundreds of people. Al-Muqaddasi in the 10th century described them as resembling minarets, while Nasir Khusraw in the early 11th century described some of them rising up to 14 stories, with roof gardens on the top storey complete with ox-drawn water wheels for irrigating them.

By the 16th century, Cairo also had high-rise apartment buildings where the two lower floors were for commercial and storage purposes and the multiple stories above them were rented out to tenants.

Medieval Yemen

Tower blocks were built in the Yemeni city of Shibam in the 16th century. The houses of Shibam are all made out of mud bricks, but about 500 of them are tower houses, which rise 5 to 16 stories high, with each floor having one or two apartments. This technique of building was implemented in order to protect residents from Bedouin attacks. While Shibam has existed for around 2,000 years, most of the city's houses come mainly from the 16th century.

Shibam has been called "one of the oldest and best examples of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction" or "Manhattan of the desert". Some towers were over high, thus being the tallest surviving mudbrick tower blocks and apartment buildings today.

East 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 70 years since, 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.

Americas

Canada

In Canada tower blocks are usually known as Apartment buildings or Apartment blocks. The city of Toronto contains the second largest concentration of high-rise apartment buildings in North America. Most were built in the 1950s and 1960s to provide modern affordable housing in what was then the periphery of the city, following what had become popular in many European nations; notably France. Today many lie isolated from amenities and rapid transit corridors, and a few have deteriorated into ghettos such as the Jane and Finch, Malvern, St. James Town and Jamestown, Regent Park, and Lawrence Heights neighborhoods.

"Residential high-rises" are also extensively used in Vancouver downtown, leading to very high population which makes Vancouver downtown unique among North American cities; see Vancouverism. Many of the newly built high-rises are luxury apartments that command prices higher than those than detached housing in the area.

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.

Currently, the tallest high-rise apartment building and tower block in the world is Chicago's John Hancock Center, constructed by Bangladeshi engineer Fazlur Khan in 1969. The building has 100 stories and stands at 344 meters tall.

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.

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 Czech Republic
• Plattenbau - the equivalent in East Germany
• Cutie de chibrituri - meaning Matchboxes in Romanian is the equivalent in Romania
• Gellerup Parken is a neighborhood in the western Aarhus, Denmark
• Rosengård is a suburb in Malmö, Sweden

References

1. HANLEY, L. (2007) Estates: an intimate history, London, Granta Books, p. 104.
2. DUNLEAVY, P. (1981) The politics of mass housing in Britain, 1945-1975, Oxford, U.K, Clarendon Press; HANLEY, L. (2007) Estates: an intimate history, London, Granta Books.
3. DUNLEAVY, P. (1981) The politics of mass housing in Britain, 1945-1975, Oxford, U.K, Clarendon Press, p. 57.
4. DUNLEAVY, P. (1981) The politics of mass housing in Britain, 1945-1975, Oxford, U.K, Clarendon Press, p. 84.
5. POWER, A. (1997) Estates on the edge, Great Britain, MacMillan, p. 57.
6. HANLEY, L. (2007) Estates: an intimate history, London, Granta Books.
7. DUNLEAVY, P. (1981) The politics of mass housing in Britain, 1945-1975, Oxford, U.K, Clarendon Press, p. 58
8. POWER, A. (1997) Estates on the edge, Great Britain, MacMillan, p. 59.
9. POWER, A. (1997) Estates on the edge, Great Britain, MacMillan, p. 58.
10. LUND, B. (1996) Housing problems and housing policy, New York, Longman, p. 127.
11. POWER, A. (1997) Estates on the edge, Great Britain, MacMillan, p. 93.
12. POWER, A. (1997) Estates on the edge, Great Britain, MacMillan, p. 59
13. HANLEY, L. (2007) Estates: an intimate history, London, Granta Books, p. 119
14. DUNLEAVY, P. (1981) The politics of mass housing in Britain, 1945-1975, Oxford, U.K, Clarendon Press, p. 98.
15. POWER, A. (1997) Estates on the edge, Great Britain, MacMillan, p. 92.
16. POWER, A. (1997) Estates on the edge, Great Britain, MacMillan, p. 111.
17. POWER, A. (1987) Property before people, London, Allen & Unwin, p. 143.
18. POWER, A. (1987) Property before people, London, Allen & Unwin, p. 144.
19. POWER, A. (1997) Estates on the edge, Great Britain, MacMillan, p. 95.
20. POWER, A. (1997) Estates on the edge, Great Britain, MacMillan.
21. DUNLEAVY, P. (1981) The politics of mass housing in Britain, 1945-1975, Oxford, U.K, Clarendon Press, p. 97.
22. HANLEY, L. (2007) Estates: an intimate history, London, Granta Books, p. 124
23. DUNLEAVY, P. (1981) The politics of mass housing in Britain, 1945-1975, Oxford, U.K, Clarendon Press, p. 99
24. Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2719, in: Katja Lembke, Cäcilia Fluck, Günter Vittmann: Ägyptens späte Blüte. Die Römer am Nil, Mainz 2004, ISBN 3-8053-3276-9, p.29
25. Old Walled City of Shibam, UNESCO World Heritage Centre
26. John Hancock Center, Emporis

External links

• Sustaining Tower Blocks
• World's tallest residential towers
• East European blocks of flats today
• Photos of Apartment Blocks from around the world
• News on the Block - a magazine all about flats