Twelve-storey flats, Old Street, Finsbury

Joseph Emberton’s bold experiment at Finsbury in the construction of tower blocks as a means of utilizing a closely built-round site. There are three star-shaped towers on this site, each of twelve storeys, 118 ft. high (the tallest dwellings in London except for Queen Anne’s Mansions, Westminster, which were put up in 1888). They give a density of 200 people to the acre. It is an idea that deserves pursuing, though to be wholly successful it needs sites of larger area; the Finsbury towers are a little too close together for their height. They were unusually quick and economical to construct, but the details strike me as unnecessarily meagre and attenuated. The second central London example—in north Kensington—is one of several schemes the same architects have completed lately, all of which are well thought-out, well detailed, sometimes a little stolid, but represent the tradition of un- pretentious brick architecture which Britain shares with Scandinavia and Holland at its soundest. These flats are also notable for exceptionally skilful planning. [Architects’ Journal 21 January 1954 page 89-90] 

TWELVE FLOORS UP IN FINSBURY, FLATS OPENED ON STAFFORD CRIPPS ESTATE, Twelve-storey blocks of flats in London, off Old Street, Finsbury, were officially opened on Saturday by Dame Isobel Cripps on what is to be known as the Stafford Cripps estate. The buildings, designed by Mr. Joseph Emberton, rise 112ft. above the streets in the form of Y-shaped towers. The three blocks opened contain ISO flats, with one, two, or three bedrooms, central heating and hot water, points for radio and television to be installed and, on the sunny side, a balcony large enough to take a perambulator. Dame Isobell Cripps said that her husband always longed for people to have good homes. She wished that many who found him austere could have seen him in his own home with simple things round him. [Times Monday, 16 November 1953 page 5]