Prefabs: Palaces For The People by Elisabeth Blanchet

Photographer Elisabeth Blanchet has spent over 11 years building an archive of post-war prefabricated homes and communities in the UK. Prefabs – Palaces For The People is a multimedia exhibition that includes photographs, interviews, short films, stories, an iPad interactive platform and prefab memorabilia.

In 1943, the Government invested in a prototype, temporary steel bungalow, which became known as the “Portal Prototype”. In a speech in March 1944, Prime Minister Winston Churchill promised 500,000 temporary new homes to deal with the acute housing shortage, although only 156,623 were produced (between 1945 and 1949). The first prototype was displayed outside Tate Gallery, London in May 1944.

Over the years there has been much interest in prefabs from writers, the general public and through the media. Actor Michael Caine and politician Neil Kinnock were both famously brought up in prefabs. Recently, the popular television programmes Foyle’s War and Call the Midwife have both featured prefabs and ignited people’s interest in, and nostalgia for, post-war British design. Architectural heritage consultant and writer Greg Stevenson and sustainable housing expert, architect and writer Brenda Vale have authored two of many books on prefabs.

Designed for homeless families with young children, these “palaces for the people” (as they were called at the time) were synonymous not only with comfort and luxury but also with freedom from the cramped and unsanitary urban housing of pre-war Britain.