Covert erasure and agents of change in the heritage city

Towards the end of 2017 the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) announced a major new acquisition for their collections: two complete maisonettes from the Robin Hood Gardens council estate (RHG) in East London. Long threatened with demolition, this much dilapidated brutalist icon (in fact two separate buildings) had become a key battleground in fierce debates over the qualities of postwar architecture and the provision of social housing in the city (Powers 2010). According to Neil Bingham, curator of contemporary architectural collections at the V&A, the acquisition would ‘motivate new thinking and research into this highly experimental period of British architectural