There exists a sharp-edged yet fascinating world where brutalism is an irresistible aesthetic and Trellick Tower is the ultimate dream palace. A nightmare? A utopia? Scrolling through Instagram and TikTok, it certainly seems real: some people love the tower so much they dream of living there, sneak inside to climb the staircases and shoot videos, knock on doors just to peek inside the flats, or linger at its feet in awe. There’s even an Instagram account entirely dedicated to the Trellick. Latest news: whether you’re a card-carrying brutalism fan or a drifting content creator, a flat has just come on the market — asking price nearly £700,000.

What makes Trellick so special? Like all things that endure, it’s a living contradiction. It stands at the crossroads of many paradoxes, including a fantastic story connected to Britain’s last true icon since Queen Elizabeth’s passing: James Bond.

Trellick Tower is where modernist optimism meets the failures of urban policy, where gentrification clashes with the rebellious dream of living in places once despised by our grandparents — even though they lived there themselves. Over time, Trellick has been reimagined by successive London subcultures, from punk to present day, drawing in together Blur fans and young cybergoths who drift along the banks of the Grand Union Canal at sunset, snapping photos of the tower to hang in their bedrooms while listening to Bauhaus and Molchat Doma.

Trellick Tower was designed in the 1960s as part of a public housing commission by the Greater London Council. There’s nothing fancy about it: pure, uncompromising social housing. Thirty-one storeys, over 200 flats, and a striking design that would soon make it famous, with a main block connected by skybridges to a separate service tower. The architect was Ernő Goldfinger (yes, like that Goldfinger — but we’ll get to that), a Hungarian-born modernist who had been living in London for decades. By then, he had already left his mark with other modernist buildings, including Trellick’s sister project, the Balfron Tower, located across the city in Poplar, East London. Goldfinger even moved into the Balfron Tower for a time to test out the design firsthand.

Trellick’s brutalist fortress-like presence, dropped into a less-than-glamorous part of London — albeit not far from the manicured lawns of Hyde Park — gained a tough reputation. In the 1970s and 80s, it became associated with crime, drugs, and urban decay. And yet, perhaps because of that, it also turned into a punk, post-punk, rave, and underground icon, attracting musicians, writers, photographers, and filmmakers. Post-punk band The Fall name-dropped it in a song; Blur featured it in their For Tomorrow video; and filmmaker Patrick Keiller included it in his psychogeographic film London. Local legend has it that The Clash, hailing from the nearby area, shot a video there — though that’s never been confirmed. In the 1990s, gritty urban settings suddenly became cool, with the rise of jungle music through Goldie and the disturbing music videos of Chris Cunningham for Aphex Twin. Trellick was no longer just a grim architectural duckling — it became an icon and the ultimate urban dream home.

The Modern House, the real estate agency, describes the latest available 75-square-meter flat as “an exemplary exercise in modernist architecture, with an emphasis on spacious interiors, natural light, and practical materials”. Today, Trellick Tower is a Grade II* listed building, meaning it holds exceptional architectural and historical significance. It has 217 flats, some of which remain social housing, while many have transitioned to private ownership. With cultural and real estate reappraisal, living here is now a luxury few can afford — some flats are priced close to £1 million. Longtime residents, creatives, professionals, and brutalist architecture enthusiasts all coexist here, embracing the building’s complex legacy: conceived as affordable housing, yet now emblematic of an upmarket, design-conscious London. 

Yet the architect who designed it was so disliked by one particular Londoner that his surname became that of one of pop culture’s greatest villains.

Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels, was a staunch traditionalist and an avowed enemy of modernism. In the 1930s, Goldfinger built a modernist house in Hampstead, north London — the house still exists today under the care of the National Trust. Fleming lived nearby and reportedly never forgave Goldfinger for “disfiguring” the neighbourhood with his stark rationalist design. So when it came time to name his Bond villain, Fleming gave him the architect’s surname. The novel Goldfinger came out in 1959, the film adaptation followed in 1964 with Sean Connery immortalizing the character on screen. Goldfinger, the architect, was furious and threatened to sue, prompting Fleming to sarcastically offer to pay him one penny for every copy sold. Ultimately, the name stuck — and so did the myth.

None of this, of course, stopped Ernő Goldfinger from designing the building that made him famous.

Opening image: Photo by Flemming Ibsen licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 from Flickr