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Basildon: A Corbusian utopia in the heart of the home counties. A thoroughly modern example of urban planning. Well on paper anyway.
Growing up I would regularly visit Basildon town centre for such delights as Marks and Spencer and the now defunct "savacentre". For those of you that have never had the, pleasure? of visiting Basildon try to imagine Fritz Lang's Metropolis only with track pants.
I often questioned why someone would build something which was so... well ugly! This curiosity is perhaps what has fuelled my love for brutalism, and architecture in general.
So thank you basildon. You have opened by eyes as well as my mind. Even if a population of Lambert and Butler smoking, pyjama wearing* "basildonites" isnt what Basil Spence imagined.
*Its commonplace for the native female population to match pj bottoms with Ugg boots whilst roaming the town square. Yes, I have been thoroughly stereotypical throughout.
