The Open University

Social housing and working class heritage - for iPod/iPhone is a education podcast hosted by The Open University. It has 32 episodes, with the latest published July 2009.

Would you consider a dilapidated seventies tower block as heritage? In England, some social housing developments have already been given listed status, a level of protection usually associated with castles, monasteries and stately homes. Others are considered as a failed experiment by an outmoded welfare state, fit only for demolition. In this album, we see working class residents of one such estate fighting for its survival. By doing so, they may be challenging some of our fundamental assumptions and preconceptions about heritage. The album also contains academic perspectives from Rodney Harrison, Lecturer in Heritage Studies at The Open University; and Alan Powers, Professor in Architecture and Cultural History at the University of Greenwich.This material forms part of The Open University Course AD281 Understanding global heritage.You can discover something of what it's like to study the course by using the downloadable 'activities' files to explore post-war housing and its conse

education ·en ·32 episodes