Southwyck House, which was built more than 50 years ago, still hovers above Brixton in south London, attracting both intrigue and derision.

The massive concrete structure with tiny windows, which was once council housing, has been compared to a prison and is known locally as the "Barrier Block." After it was completed in 1981, there was suspicion that the people who were offered homes there did not want to move in because of the building's severe facade.

Another popular rumor is that the architect who designed it was so enraged by public criticism of her work that she committed suicide.

Magda Borowiecka, the building's architect, is very much alive and well, sitting in her Lambeth home after receiving her Covid booster immunization. She laughs at "that dreadful barrier" when the block is mentioned.

One of the truths about Southwyck House's design that is sometimes overlooked in accounts of its history is that it was useful at the time. Borowiecka was instructed she needed to design a structure that would be able to sit next to a raised flyover, but that concept was subsequently scrapped.

"Everyone hated [Southwyck House] at first, but it was frustrating for me because I knew why I designed it that way," Borowiecka, 90, said.

Lambeth council commissioned the structure to shelter 2,500 people. A planning committee, which included future Prime Minister John Major, approved the plans.

"Because the highway would have been 60 feet in the air, I needed to build a blank wall that was higher than that." "I had to think of a way to make an interesting building out of it," Borowiecka said, explaining why the building has such little windows.

"They decided not to do the motorway when we went out to tender, but John Major, my boss in Lambeth, decided to go ahead with it because so much effort and money had gone into the design." Everyone despised it when it was put up."

She expressed her dissatisfaction with the situation by saying she was "very upset." "It was used as a justification for not having council architects." Even though he commissioned it, Major noted in papers that it was terrible."

"What kind of insensitive megalomaniac could have dreamed up such a scheme, even now we might have learned the lessons of such vast estates, desolate, impersonal, and crime-prone?" asked The Guardian at the time.

Borowiecka said she's more interested in low-rise buildings and is prouder of work she's done elsewhere, such as apartments on West Norwood's Dunbar Street. She stated the Barrier Block was "not doing the job it was supposed to be doing at the moment" when asked if she wanted it removed.

"My main issue is that it has become somewhat well-known, but I still don't like it," she explained. "What I would have liked to see on the Barrier Block is a big poster that says this is built this way because of a motorway."

Brutalist architecture has recently made a resurgence and garnered popularity. Borowiecka's building has been included in publications about this style of design, as well as in artwork and T-shirt designs.

Southwyck House was quickly defended by Catherine Croft, director of the Twentieth Century Society. "It's a unique piece of architecture as well as a local landmark," she explained.

"Yes, it was designed in response to a road project that never materialized, but I believe Magda Borowiecka is overly modest about what she accomplished."

“It speaks to the inventiveness of a generation of highly socially committed architects who worked incredibly hard to deliver good quality affordable housing – it's also a rare example of a major building by a woman architect at this time, and one that C20 Society has proudly included in architectural tours,” she continued.

Borowiecka recalls her time working for Lambeth with pleasure, regretting that there is no longer as much council housing and construction. "As an architect, I enjoy solving problems, and the motorway was a huge problem with Southwyck House," she explained.

"It's unfortunate that housing in London has become so expensive," she continued.

Thanks to Sarah Marsh at The Guardian whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.