Estate
Dublin Core
Title
Estate
Shelfmark - 155.DOC/UL.CLAYTON
Subject
Documentary
Description
A social documentary project of a public housing estate in the West Midlands, photographed in 1990 / 1991 by Robert Clayton
Creator
Robert Clayton
Publisher
Stay Free Publishing
Date
2015
Format
Off set litho printed
Book Item Type Metadata
Dimensions
24x30x1.5
Number of Pages
128
Number of images
67
Edition Size
750
Place of Publication
UK
Designer
Errol Donald
Editor
Robert Clayton / Laura Noble
ISBN
978-0-9931284-0-0
Website
www.robclayton.co.uk
URL Link to project
www.lionfarmestate.co.uk
Where to buy
www.stayfreepublishing.co.uk
Links to reviews
https://www.architectural-review.com/owen-hatherleys-books-of-the-year/10000836.fullarticle
"There was nothing special about Lion Farm Estate. It could have existed in more or less any British connurbation which was on the cusp of losing its raison d'etre. What is special is Clayton's humane rendering of it as a time capsule which emphasised ordinariness. This was how it was for millions of people in the early 90s. This was Britain between Thatcherism and, well, the smiley neo-Thatcherism of New Labour. A new political consensus was in place, an insidious consensus which blithely disregarded the sort of people who lived on such estates, the invisible people, the little people who had not the wherewithal to exercise their precious right to buy. Again Clayton leaves us to reach such conclusions. He has a broad and important socio-political point to make. It is all the more potent for being made so quietly." www.jonathanmeades.co.uk
"I thoroughly enjoyed it. The pictures capture the spirit of the estate very precisely." Ken Loach, Film Director
"Robert Clayton's images of ordinary modernism in the Black Country in the early 1990s are sharp, surprising and sad. They work as a vivid corrective to both sentimental nostalgia over the welfare state and the alarmist narratives of 'sink' estates - because here is neither hell nor utopia, but a depiction of a place and a people usually ignored or turned into cliche, rendered with visual intelligence and sensitivity" Owen Hatherley Author and Journalist
"The way you've put it all together feels like a narrative too, as if you're following the story of those characters and that place. And the photos themselves are so beautifully framed and composed, creating a rather epic feel to these everyday moments. Anyone with an interest in postwar British social history, modernist architecture or street photography would really enjoy this book." John Grindrod Author
"There was nothing special about Lion Farm Estate. It could have existed in more or less any British connurbation which was on the cusp of losing its raison d'etre. What is special is Clayton's humane rendering of it as a time capsule which emphasised ordinariness. This was how it was for millions of people in the early 90s. This was Britain between Thatcherism and, well, the smiley neo-Thatcherism of New Labour. A new political consensus was in place, an insidious consensus which blithely disregarded the sort of people who lived on such estates, the invisible people, the little people who had not the wherewithal to exercise their precious right to buy. Again Clayton leaves us to reach such conclusions. He has a broad and important socio-political point to make. It is all the more potent for being made so quietly." www.jonathanmeades.co.uk
"I thoroughly enjoyed it. The pictures capture the spirit of the estate very precisely." Ken Loach, Film Director
"Robert Clayton's images of ordinary modernism in the Black Country in the early 1990s are sharp, surprising and sad. They work as a vivid corrective to both sentimental nostalgia over the welfare state and the alarmist narratives of 'sink' estates - because here is neither hell nor utopia, but a depiction of a place and a people usually ignored or turned into cliche, rendered with visual intelligence and sensitivity" Owen Hatherley Author and Journalist
"The way you've put it all together feels like a narrative too, as if you're following the story of those characters and that place. And the photos themselves are so beautifully framed and composed, creating a rather epic feel to these everyday moments. Anyone with an interest in postwar British social history, modernist architecture or street photography would really enjoy this book." John Grindrod Author
Collection
Citation
Robert Clayton, “Estate,” Photo Book Cafe Archive, accessed April 30, 2025, https://www.photobookcafe-archive.co.uk/items/show/155.