Why the U.K.'s Tower Blocks Deserve a Vast, Visual Archive

Is the Anglo-American backlash against the modernist tower block finally coming to an end? Scottish architectural historian Miles Glendinning believes it’s only a matter of time until the long-reviled architectural form gets full rehabilitation. Mind you, he has a personal stake in just that process.

A champion of the tower block for almost 30 years, Glendinning is currently building an extensive archive he calls a “new Domesday Book” of Britain’s high-rise apartment buildings. Due for completion in 2017, the online archive will feature every British residential tower built in the 20th century (including those now demolished) and will combine photographs with residents’ testimonies. Stemming from material Glendinning created with colleague Stefan Muthesius for their 1994 book Tower Block, the archive should help power a reappraisal that the University of Edinburgh professor feels is long overdue. It’s a fascinating record of high-rise Britain that, as Glendinning points out, could easily have been lost.