Opinion: Richard Rogers' vision for a more European form of British architecture promised to create modern and prosperous urban environments. But this "new Europe" failed to reach the suburban council estates and cul-de-sacs that backed Brexit, says Owen Hatherley.

A couple of days after the result of the referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, I visited Southampton, my home town. Southampton voted to leave, to my surprise, and by roughly the same margin as the country as a whole.
A rainy walk ended at Ocean Village, a development built in the mid-1980s on a small derelict part of the city's docks, which are ? unlike those of Liverpool, Bristol or London ? mostly still in use.
Formerly on the site was the late 1940s Ocean Terminal, a streamlined design for the luxury travellers for whom Southampton was a more long-winded precursor to Heathrow. But that was demolished without a second thought in favour of a miserable collection of introverted, pitched-roofed housing complexes in cul-de-sacs and vaguely Postmodern office blocks surrounded by car parks, with an exurban American-style multiplex cinema and a shopping mall, since demolished. There was only one view of the estuary, in a hard-to-find corner, and it was and is for residents only. It is hard to recall how insular and grim mainstream British architecture was in the 1980s
In 1997, a new building was opened there, called the Harbour Lights. I can still recall some excitement when it o...