{"id":93805,"date":"2025-08-26T11:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T11:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/93805\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T11:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T11:34:09","slug":"park-hill-model-photos-discovered-in-attic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/93805\/","title":{"rendered":"Park Hill model photos discovered in attic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicholas Pawlik \u2013 a fellow architect who runs London-based practice Pawlik + Wiedmer<\/a> \u2013 told the AJ he discovered the photographs when his grandmother Audrey, Smith\u2019s widow, died in May at the age of 100. They had languished in the eaves of her house for the past 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u2018They left all his stuff to me,\u2019 Pawlik said. \u2018There were some really early skyline studies of Sheffield, and those are definitely Ivor\u2019s, and a development model of the first bit of the building. Ivor took the model shots.\u2019<\/p>\n

The photographs of the models are stamped on the back \u2018CA Dept 1953\u2019, presumably a reference to the city architecture department where, heavily inspired by Le Corbusier\u2019s Unit\u00e9 d\u2019Habitation in Marseille, Smith and his partner Jack Lynn worked up the famous streets in the sky development in their twenties.<\/p>\n

It was built between 1957 and 1961.<\/p>\n

One of the photographs \u2013 which are believed to have been taken by Smith himself \u2013 shows architectural models surrounded by exhibition boards. These boast that the scheme is \u2018designed for children\u2019s safety\u2019 with \u2018footpaths away from roads\u2019; and explain that the deck \u2018forms a continuous pedestrian street on every third floor\u2019.<\/p>\n

Another, understood to have been taken by Smith\u2019s wife Audrey, shows Smith on the left, Lynn in the middle, and the city council\u2019s chief architect, Lewis Womersley, examining an aerial model.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ivor Smith (left), Jack Lynn (middle), and the city council\u2019s chief architect Lewis Womersley, examining a model of Park Hill<\/p>\n

Ivor Smith died in 2018, but Pawlik recalled that he\u2019d relished the new lease of life given to Park Hill by its Grade II* listing in 1998 and the subsequent Urban Splash-led regeneration.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ivor really enjoyed seeing how it had had the chance to fulfil aspects of the original vision,\u2019 he said. \u2018He grew up in an era of very aspirational council housing.\u2019<\/p>\n

Pawlik added that the final bill for the 1,000 flats was \u00a32,360 per flat, or a total of \u00a32.29 million, inclusive of fees. The modern equivalent would be \u00a353 million, demonstrating remarkable value for money.<\/p>\n

See Kunle Barker\u2019s Opinion piece: Why Sheffield\u2019s Park Hill estate is a model for our times<\/a><\/p>\n

Annalie Riches, founding director of Mikhail Riches<\/a>, will be talking about the technical, social, and design lessons of working on Park Hill\u2019s regeneration at AJ Retrofit Live<\/a> on 10 September.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Park Hill regeneration phase 2, Sheffield, by Mikhail Riches Architects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nicholas Pawlik \u2013 a fellow architect who runs London-based practice Pawlik + Wiedmer \u2013 told the AJ he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-93805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}