Brent
Brent’s 20th century architectural history is split between the urban southern part featuring Willesden and Kilburn which developed first, and the more rural northern areas at Wembley and Kingsbury. Wembley is the most significant area in terms of modernist design, being the place used for attracting people out to the suburbs; first through the failed Watkins Tower and then the more successful British Empire Exhibition of 1924-5. The exhibition was modern in construction rather than design, with Owen Williams’ planned reinforced concrete structures such as the Palace of Engineering, paving the way for his more radical Empire Pool on the same site a decade later. The influx of visitors to the exhibition, 25 million by the time it closed, also provided a population boom resulting in modernist style homes, designed by Welch, Cachemaille-Day & Lander for the Haymills building company, being built on the slopes of Wembley and beyond.
At the same time as those flat roofed houses were appearing, Ernest Trobridge was producing more historically inspired designs in Kingsbury. Like the exhibition buildings, Trobridges flats on Highfield Avenue hid contemporary reinforced concrete construction. Brent also has a few underground stations by Charles Holden, including Sudbury Town, his breakthrough box design that he spent the next decade refining. Post war, the progressive interwar legacy was not taken on, with the local authority housing like the Chalkhill Estate, Wembley being quickly built and just as quickly torn down. Also demolished were the buildings of the Empire Exhibition, now disappeared beneath the shiny new high rises around Wembley Stadium.
At the same time as those flat roofed houses were appearing, Ernest Trobridge was producing more historically inspired designs in Kingsbury. Like the exhibition buildings, Trobridges flats on Highfield Avenue hid contemporary reinforced concrete construction. Brent also has a few underground stations by Charles Holden, including Sudbury Town, his breakthrough box design that he spent the next decade refining. Post war, the progressive interwar legacy was not taken on, with the local authority housing like the Chalkhill Estate, Wembley being quickly built and just as quickly torn down. Also demolished were the buildings of the Empire Exhibition, now disappeared beneath the shiny new high rises around Wembley Stadium.