Innovative architecture, historic setting

Published: 1 April, 2010

• IN your article about the proposal to demolish two modernist houses in Belsize Park Gardens and replace them with four storey faux-Victorian buildings (Campaign to save modernist pair, March 25), one of the owners discounts any objections to their plans on the grounds that the existing houses cannot be seen behind the original six-foot high Victorian boundary wall. 
But this is precisely why we object. 
The current houses were designed to fit sensitively into the Victorian landscape of Belsize Park Gardens.
We consider that the condition that this garden site could only be built on if the houses were invisible from the street should continue to apply. 
Although we have not had a chance to see these houses as they are now, those of us who have lived in the area for some time remember the publicity they received in the 1980s because they effectively integrated innovative new architecture into a historic environment. The argument that energy efficiency standards have improved since the 1980s can be applied equally to improving energy efficiency in existing buildings as to pulling them down and replacing them. 
If these houses no longer meet the requirements of their present owners, we believe that there are others for whom these single-story houses would be particularly convenient.
AVERIL NOTAGE
Chairwoman, Belsize Residents’ Association