Dockers in Poplar: The Legacy of the London County Council’s Replanning of Poplar, East London

Rosamund Lily West
Additional contact information
Rosamund Lily West: Department of Architecture and Landscape, Kingston University, UK

Urban Planning, 2023, vol. 8, issue 1, 255-265

Abstract: Using Sydney Harpley’s sculpture, The Dockers , installed in Trinity Gardens on the Lansbury Estate in Poplar, this article will examine the London County Council’s reimagining of a key centre in London’s East End. Installed in September 1962, these Dockers sit within the post-war planned vision of the capital and are, as Frank Mort describes, “cultural visions” of a new London. For hundreds of years, Poplar served as part of the Port of London’s industrial heartland. After the Second World War, the London County Council assumed the River Thames would continue to be the heartbeat of Britain’s industry. The Port of London was the country’s largest and busiest port. The London County Council recognised that, in London, the most depressed and congested areas with bad housing housed working people. However, by referencing one part of the culture of this part of London, the London County Council was relying on a homogeneity of experience, difficult to defend in 1960s London. Using the initial reception of The Dockers , as well as the sculpture’s subsequent vandalism and destruction, this article shall analyse how the London County Council’s vision for post-war Poplar changed through the rapid deindustrialisation of the 1980s, through to the rapid gentrification of the area in the 21st century.

Keywords: deindustrialisation; Docklands; East London; gentrification; housing; Poplar; Sydney Harpley (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/6075 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:urbpla:v8:y:2023:i:1:p:255-265

DOI: 10.17645/up.v8i1.6075

Access Statistics for this article

Urban Planning is currently edited by Tiago Cardoso

More articles in Urban Planning from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().