AGAINST: Marcus Binney, architecture correspondent

A grim building in an even grimmer place, Robin Hood Gardens is a classic example of what Ian Nairn called the “softly-spoken it's good for you, castration of the East End”. Socialist town planners and well-meaning, Corbusier worshippers such as the Smithsons simply did not understand that the East End had a rich, friendly community life that had evolved over centuries. They viewed the local street life, where kids played in the streets and front doors were left open, as primitive.

The supposed Utopia quickly became places where public spaces belong to everybody but nobody. People fear for their safety. Lifts don't work and stairwells are used as lavatories.

The bottom line is that places such as Robin Hood Gardens are fine as long as you don't have children. There can be little doubt that, like Ernö Goldfinger's Trellick Tower in West London, a renovated Robin Hood Gardens could become a magnet for young City workers and Modern enthusiasts looking for style and enjoying the generous space, light and views. As champions of preservation point out, Robin Hood Gardens is as striking and potentially exciting a landmark of modern design as the handsomely renovated Brunswick Centre.

The minister should issue a judgment of Solomon and refuse either to list the building or to issue a certificate of immunity against listing. If the likes of Lord Foster of Thames Bank and Lord Rogers of Riverside are calling for listing they should put their money where their mouths are and do up a sample group of apartments and show the undoubtedly amazing transformation that would result.

FOR: Alan Powers, architectural historian and chairman of the 20th Century Society

“You cannot step into the same river twice,” as Heraclitus said, and when buildings are destroyed there is no return. Robin Hood Gardens represents an aspect of the past that has light and shade, and to see only its dark side is to miss the positive aspects.

It is not just any old concrete slab block. It represented a concentration of thought and effort by two remarkable architects, Peter and Alison Smithson. Robin Hood Gardens represents their role in the postwar attempt, across the world, to reconsider the nature of dwelling in a city. A sizeable piece of green turf and sky is caught between two boomerang-shaped cliffs of housing, making a particular and special place where the reflected light of the Thames bounces around. You would search the vainglorious towers and the smug yuppie apartments of the neighbouring Isle of Dogs and find nothing so grandly simple.

A protection by listing does not preclude a significant rethink about the flats, common areas and the setting of the estate. Such adaptations have been successfully achieved in other cases, and many of the best architects are queueing up to have a go.

One of the features of New Brutalism, the movement that clustered around the Smithsons, was to recognise that architecture should stir the soul at a time of corporate blandness. Like it or not, Robin Hood Gardens brings a deep soul to make a unique place.

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