Tower House

LDNiCON

LDNiCON is about celebrating Londons architectural endevours and uncovering the quirky, sometimes seemingly bland, components of the city. We are not focused on headline city architecture, rather, second course servings of London’s buildings and the spaces between them. These components represent the mass of the city and contribute more to the spatial experience than well-recognised buildings in London - the experience that most Londoners live through in their day-to-day existence. This is what we are most interested in.

Each month we will share our findings; experiences and ideas of what we think make architectural icons in the city of London.

Tower House

Location : Whitechapel, London
Built : 1902
Architect : Mr. Harry B. Measures
What's hot :The residents who stayed during the 19th century.
What's not : Allowing such a large residential building remain derelict for so long in a part of London deprived of affordable housing - and then for it to be turned into expensive, private apartments - a contradiction against the purpose of which it was original conceived.

Tower House was a working class jewel in the East End of London during the early 19th Century. A respite from the squalid conditions of disease-ridden lodgings around the area, Tower House provided a safe and relatively clean place to put your head down for a night.

Built in 1902 under the vision and philanthropy of Lord Rowton, Tower House was the fifth development from the Rowton Houses scheme. Lord Rowton, troubled by the conditions he saw on the streets of London, wanted to provide cheap accommodation for the poorly paid. He wanted to provide something that surpassed anything that was on offer at the time for the working man.

His schemes where founded on simple principles. Communal areas consisting of a dinning room, smoking lounge, reading room, barbers, shoemakers shop and cleaning rooms where located on the ground floor and in the basement. Hi The upper floors contained cubicles where the residences lived. Hi The upper floors contained cubicles where the residences lived. Cubicles were small and contained a bed, chair, shelf and a chamber pot.

Tower House could accommodate 816 men in cubicles over 5 floors. An advert placed in the newspapers at the time honestly describes the building well:

"...the latest building can almost be described as a handsome structure. It is situated in a very typical area of Whitechapel, and the lines of its elevation stand out conspicuously from the dirty and squalid rows of surrounding housesﾉIt consists of two adjoining parallelograms, the larger of which forms the frontage to Fieldgate Street, having a frontage of 192ft. and a depth of 129ft. and the smaller has a back frontage of 75ft. and a depth of 67ft. The whole site has total superficial area of 29,500ft. An abundance of light and air or all floors has been secured by the provision of wide forecourts on all sides of the building, and in addition a large inner courtyard 50ft. wide at its eastern endﾉAll the rooms are beautifully fitted up, and one cannot help being struck with the air of comfort which pervades the whole of these rooms..."

At a cost of 6d (Today's equivalent of about £1.40) a night, residents were able to spend the night in a cubical, make use of the facilities during the day to wash and rest. Residents could eat in the dinning room or cook their own meals from food they purchased from the in-house shop. As well as providing refuge to many Londoners living rough on the street, great contributors of literature and leaders of historical social movements also experienced the comforts of 'wire wound, horse hair mattresses'. A young Joesif Stalin stayed for two weeks in 1907 whilst attending a Conference of the Russian Social Labour Democratic Party, just over the road from Tower House.

George Orwell, the great English writer, stayed for a period of time at Tower House and wrote of it:
''The best are the Rowton Houses, where the charge is a shilling, for which you get a cubicle to yourself, and the use of excellent bathrooms. You can also pay half a crown for a special, which is practically hotel accommodation. The Rowton Houses are splendid buildings, and the only objection to them is the strict discipline, with rules against cooking, card playing, etc.''

A hundred years on, Tower House, a philanthropists answer to homelessness and poverty in East London, now provides shelter to young and affluent city workers. Renovated in 2005 and transformed into 'design-chic', 'loft style' apartments, the stark shift in the residents demographic from homeless men in 19th century to criminal drug users in the 90's, to the recent incarnation of Gucci wearing professionals, makes for a familiar case study in the gentrification of inner London boroughs. Certainly, Tower House is another captured landmark as gentrification creeps east from Englands financial capital.

We think Tower House is an icon because it was a magnificent ghost in the landscape of Whitechapel. Nestled behind two-storey, electronics whole sale shop fronts to the north, and a council estate to its south, it was a derelict void with an ornate facade. It was also a point of curiosity for the team of UKADAPTA during our 10 years of living in the area: 'Who lived there? Why is it so big? Why has it been empty for so long? Why are there used needles everywhere? Where is the door in?!'
Being a typical example of the transformation of our local area and also having dared to venture into the abyss ourselves, we have a personal affection with the building and want for it to be an icon of architecture for London.

Written by Tai Hollingsbee