The “Streets in the Sky” invented by Alison and Peter Smithson at their simultaneously celebrated and notorious Robin Hood Gardens in East London are still partly inhabited. But the longer of the two snaking Brutalist concrete buildings forming this once-exemplary public-housing project stands empty and boarded up. Demolition will start before the end of the year. A long campaign to save it, waged by leading architects including Richard Rogers and the late Zaha Hadid, fell on deaf ears. New, higher-density housing called Blackwall Reach is slated to be built on its site by a large private public-housing provider.

The Smithsons (Alison, 1928–93) and Peter (1923–2003) were British architecture’s internationally respected power couple of the postwar years. Robin Hood Gardens (1969–72), their only mass-housing project, sullied their reputation as it immediately became known for vandalism and crime. Poor tenant management was part of this, but the Smithsons’ design of entrances and common areas was also criticized.