We're all to blame for the gentrification of Erno Goldfinger's brutalist Balfron Tower, says Owen Hatherley, so stop getting angry at the architects.

What is it about modernist architecture that people want to preserve" There have been increasing efforts in recent years by bored critics and historians to treat, say, brutalism as an architecture like any other, a sort of Vanbrugh-esque ferroconcrete baroque. However there simply is baggage here that you will seldom find in other forms and periods.
This is one reason why, when particular brutalist buildings do get preserved, changes are deemed necessary in order for them to succeed in the property market, especially when the buildings in question are council housing.
In a cosmetic sense, these changes can be relatively small, like the middle-class chainstore thoroughfare inserted into the Brunswick Centre, or the painting of Keeling House and the addition of some carefully hidden penthouses and a big fence. They can also be extremely aggressive, as in the near-total rebuilding of one part of Park Hill in Studio Egret West and Hawkins/Brown's disastrous redesign. In visual terms, what Studio Egret West has done to the fenestration of Erno Goldfinger's Balfron Tower sits somewhere between.
The social and moral damage was already done, and is irreparable
The new opaque windows, with their faintly 80s speculative office block look, are naff for sure. But unlike at Park Hill, they will be easily overwhelmed by the otherwis...