Slice of miserable life

A three-storey section of a notorious crimeridden council block in the East End of London is to be sawn off before the rest is demolished. It will be displayed in the Victoria & Albert Museum. Attached to the 30ft-high lump is a length of the “street in the sky”, as its Seventies architects called it, a walkway that became a daily hell where muggers lurked, waiting for residents who could not escape. In a way, their misery is perpetuated by preserving in a museum this giant Brutalist nugget torn from an inhumane machine-for-living. Yet if rising generations understand what can go wrong when urban designers deny people neighbourly connections, the exhibit will have proved its value. Museums don’t show only the joys of Arcadia. Workhouses, treadmills and tower blocks are remembered, too – as a warning.