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Prefab
Photograph: Architectural Press Archive (1942)
Source: RIBA British Architectural Library Photographs Collection

After the First World War, the British government promised to build homes fit for heroes. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s large council estates were built for the men who had fought in the trenches. Made up of simple brick built houses with ample gardens, these estates were reduced forms of the Garden City ideal.

At the end of the Second World War, the government met an altogether different challenge, a housing crisis of untold proportions. Bombed cities meant hundreds of thousands homeless. Returning soldiers resulted in a baby boom, and these new families needed accommodation. A skills shortage in the building trades made this even worse.

One answer was the prefab, prototypes of which are shown in this photo. Factories once busy making aircraft were swiftly converted. Now their giant presses turned out walls, roofs and kitchen cupboards. All was pre-fabricated, their large panels bolted together on site. Soon, throughout the country, prefabs sprouted up, along avenues often named after the victorious Allied armies.

Designed as a short term solution, prefabs long outlived their intended ten-year life span. Spacious, well designed and with all ‘mod-cons,’ including a fitted kitchen, most other housing was inferior in comparison. Consequently, many residents ended up having a long-term love affair with their tin can houses.