12 Views of Kensal House - ACE149.3

Extract from film showing Cole, the children and women, and men in the workshops. Jessie Watkins, Resident 1936-1974, talking about the social events. Photographs of dances, bus trips, exercise classes, children’s activities, etc. Cole says they all took on a new lease on life. Fry explains their ideas that flats should have an integral social component and, most important, that the children should have nursery schools. Caption: "Early evening at Portobello Dock." Commentary asks why the idea of Kensal House was attractive to the company that financed it. Fry talks about the rivalry between the electricity and gas companies, and the forward-looking nature of the Gas, Light and Coke Company who used one of their own derelict sites for a piece of modern housing. Pamphlet, Why Kensal House was built. Commentary quotes from pamphlet explaining "the myth" of the all-electric house. Extract from Kensal House. Margaret & Eva Wilson, Shopkeepers, explain that the Kensal House flats were "all gas", including the lighting for which the Wilsons’ shop sold gas mantles, and which they still stock. Caption: "The Motorcycle Repair Yard below Southern Row." Commentary asks how the architects saw the design of the site meeting the needs of the occupiers of the flats. Fry talks about the awkward nature of the site, that it was much lower than the road. Architect’s drawing showing its shape, etc. Views of the buildings; the nursery school on the site of an earlier gas holder which also influenced the shape of the nearer block. Extract from Kensal House shows bridge from the main road across both blocks reducing the need for people to climb steps. "Living" balconies which Fry describes as very important features, and small balconies designed to be drying areas for laundry. The kitchen designed as a place of technology. Fry says that they eliminated corridors to increase space in the other rooms. Extract from Kensal House shows men playing billiards in living room, woman ironing.