London Docklands Development Corporation 1980-1998: Architecture, housing and postmodern urbanism

This book describes the architectural redevelopment of the London Docklands between 1981 and 1998 by the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC). It addresses the gap in the literature that situates the residential aspects of this major strategic development within the wider discourse on postmodern urban renewal in late twentieth century architectural culture, including the emergence of leisure, consumerism, historicism, gentrification and marginalization as well as the return to the inner city, as significant themes. It explores the specific role the LDDC had in defining the identity of Docklands, examining the social, political, theoretical and economic dynamics which influenced it and the cultural, spatial and aesthetic realisation of this in the residential built fabric of the area. It argues that whilst clearly a site of neoliberal adventurism, and the architectures produced through an emergent globalised economy, the significance of the approaches taken to architectural and urban design in the Dockland’s has been misread and misrepresented, and therefore its global impact – and its genius – has not been adequately recognised.