Balfron Tower

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Balfron Tower

Balfron Tower is a 27-storey housing block in the Poplar district of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London, United Kingdom. It forms part of the Brownfield social housing estate close to the northern approaches to the Blackwall Tunnel under the river Thames. Since 1998 Balfron Tower has been a Grade II* listed building.

Balfron Tower was designed by architect Ernő Goldfinger and, like nearby the Robin Hood Gardens and Goldfinger's later similar but more famous Trellick Tower in west London, is associated with the Brutalist style of 1960s architecture. Both Balfron and Trellick towers are often regarded as striking or ugly. Goldfinger himself was pleased with the design and moved in to flat 130, on the 26th floor, for two months in 1968 to find out what the residents liked and disliked about his design. What he learnt was applied to the design of Trellick Tower. Goldfinger also designed Carradale House and Glenkerry House, part of the same estate and complementing Balfron Tower in style. These buildings are now all part of the Balfron Tower Conservation Area, designated in 1998.

In December 2007, following a ballot of residents in 2006, Tower Hamlets Council transferred its ownership of Balfron Tower and the surrounding Brownfield Estate to Poplar HARCA, a Registered Social Landlord.^[1] The association is legally committed to carry out a full refurbishment of the tower.

Balfron Tower is 84 metres high and contains 146 flats. Lifts serve all entry floors (that is every third floor); thus, to reach a flat on the 11th, 12th or 13th floors, residents or visitors would take a lift to the 12th. The lift shaft sits in a separate service tower, joined to the residential tower by the seven walkways visible in the picture.