May 06, 2010 Byker Wall

Part of the Byker Wall just near Byker metro station as if  you couldn't guess.
The Byker Wall housing development to the East of Newcastle was designed by the Swedish architect Ralph Erskine in 1969-82. It was built to re-house the working class community that had grown up around the shipyards and factories along the banks of the Tyne. They had lived in terraced houses but in the late 60s the City Council decided to redevelop the area. Byker Wall is designed in a recognisably Post Modernist style and is indicative of Post Modernism as a reaction to Modernism. There are a variety of forms, colours and materials in contrast to the pristine uniformity of Modernism. The uneven outline gives a variety in level and scale, overcoming the monumentality and monotony of Modernism.

April 26, 2010 Byker Wall

A view of the Byker Wall from near Stepney Bank on the Eastern edge of the City centre.

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 assisted by Vernon Gracie, and was built in the mid-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.

On March 16th 2005 the architect of the wall died at the age of 91.

The Byker Wall was infamous as the home of "Ratboy" a juvenile delinquent who hid in its heating shafts when running from police during the 1990s.