Byker Wall
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The Byker Wall is the name given to a long unbroken block of 620 maisonettes in the Byker district of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The block was designed by the notable architect Ralph Erskine and was built at the close of the 1970s. Its Functionalist Romantic styling with textured, complex facades, colourful brick, wood and plastic panels, attention to context and relatively low-rise construction represented a major break with the Brutalist high-rise architectural orthodoxy of the time.
The Byker Wall was famous as the home of "ratboy" a juvenile who lived in its heating shafts during the 1990s.
Its innovative and visionary design has earned it many awards notably the Civic Trust Award, the Eternit Award, the Ambrose Congreve Award for Housing (in 1980) and the Veronica Rudge Green Prize for Urban Design from Harvard University.
In 2003 the UK Department of Culture Media and Sport announced a proposal to award the Byker estate, of which the Wall forms a part, a Grade Two 2 listed rating as an example of outstanding architecture.
See also
Karl-Marx-Hof - The longest single residential building in the world.External links
- [Photos of the Wall at University of Texas]
- [Tim Pickford-Jones' Gallery of the Wall and Byker estate]
- [Kay's Geography guide to the Byker estate including current issues and photos]
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