Abstract ：
Public housing policy introduced in Britain after the First World War, in the form of state-subsidised housing provision, underwent a significant change in the 1930s, when successive governments focused their attention to central redevelopment of towns, encouraging local authorities to ‘build upwards’ using blocks of flats, which were still a relatively novel form of building in a nation of suburban dwellers. This article uses contemporary sources to explore the views of representative architects and housing reformers, as well as those of local authority officials and the Town and Country Planning Association, one of the world’s oldest environmental pressure groups, and assess the balance of opinion in the so-called houses versus flats controversy of the day. It will suggest that although there was a growing interest in flats in the field of public housing, because of entrenched opinion in favour of houses on the part of the housing professions, the actual achievements on the ground were few and far between. It will also suggest that the debate highlighted the design of flats, which eschewed some core modernist principles for a softer approach, pointing to the development of a distinctly English form of modern architecture.

Keywords: housing policy; slum clearance; garden cities; ‘houses versus flats’ controversy; architectural modernism; town planning; England