The event itself, a week or so into the new year, will involve little fuss, simply a few households moving into refurbished flats. But the symbolism is momentous: a rebirth for one of Britain’s most infamous housing estates and a half-century of turbulent social history coming full circle.

Park Hill is the estate in question, a spiral of lattice-fronted brutalist blocks which rise – some would say loom – over the centre of Sheffield from a slope just east of the city’s railway station.

A pioneering and initially popular post-war development famed for its “streets in the sky” network of wide, sloping walkways, Park Hill charted a common trajectory for such estates: optimism giving way to dilapidation, social decline and then notoriety. For most the end point was demolition. Park Hill was saved because its innovative design gained a Grade II* listing in 1997.

Renovation was handed to a private developer, Urban Splash. Now, after a tortuous eight-year project during which the need to make the crumbling site more liveable repeatedly clashed with the conservation concerns of English Heritage, the first few dozen occupants of the renovated blocks are about to move in.

As a tale of an unloved architectural lexicon finding new favour this is remarkable enough. A handful of other once despised post second world war brutalist blocks have been reborn, notably Trellick Tower in North Kensington, London. Park Hill is not just significantly bigger, it doesn’t have the advantage of a highly desired postcode.

But the redevelopment also provides a microcosm of 50 years of British social change. In 1961 the new residents were council tenants, many employed in the city’s heavy industries. The commercial units at the bottom of the blocks housed butchers, grocery shops and several pubs.

The 2013 intake is very different, not least because two-thirds of them will be purchasers, albeit some on shared ownership schemes. Among the first arrivals are a university lecturer, a student doctor and a downsizing retired couple, with the first two commercial tenants both being design agencies. The plush sales office offers designer mugs and cushions featuring the flats’ distinctive concrete grid.

If that was not contrast enough, this new reality exists alongside the old. One section of Park Hill has been renovated so far and its widened windows and gleaming, colourful metal panels directly adjoin the stained brick and concrete facade of the unmodernised section. A number of social tenants remain here, including a handful of original residents. Catherine Fletcher, below, who will move into her £120,000 two-bedroom flat in the new year, is a social historian at Sheffield University and thus more aware than most of the symbolism of middle-class professionals buying refurbished council flats in a city with a 60,000-long waiting list for social housing: “I put the flat on Facebook and some of my friends who know Sheffield said, ‘You’re not seriously going to live there?’ There was a bit of banter about gentrification. But it’s not so much about Park Hill, it’s about wider government housing policy.”

While drawn mainly by her flat’s two-storey, double-aspect spaciousness, a trademark of Ivor Smith and Jack Lynn’s late 1950s design, and its vertigo-inducing top floor views over the city (“I never thought I would be able to afford a penthouse flat”), she welcomes the planned social mix.

“My grandfather, who had been to Oxford and written three books, lived in a council house,” she said. “It used to be the case that social housing was accessible to a really broad spread of the population. That just isn’t the case now. In some ways projects like this are trying, in very difficult conditions, to recreate some of that mix that my grandad had when he lived on a little square of council houses in Bradford.”

For others, the appeal is largely practical. Charlie Johnson, a 22-year-old medical student, one set of exams from becoming a junior doctor, will move into a three-bedroom flat, financing the mortgage with rent from friends. He said: “I looked at a lot of modern flats and they all seemed very boxy, almost like slightly posher student halls. This is different – it’s spacious and well designed. It looks slightly strange with posh new flats right next to the others, but that’s the sort of mix you get in all city centres.”

Another aspect of that mix will be soon-to-be neighbours Kathleen Price, 64, and her 67-year-old husband, David, who sold the three-bedroom house just outside Doncaster where they lived for 32 years and raised three children to move into a one-bedroom flat in Park Hill. They were initially pointed to the estate by their Le Corbusier-mad son but fell for the bare concrete walls, floor-to-ceiling windows and short walk to the railway station and tram.

“We knew Park Hill from its reputation, and let’s say we had a mixed reaction from friends,” Kathleen said. “It does feel a bit like we’re pioneers. I really hope that when the rest of the refurbishment happens it does become a vital place. I want people to get behind it. Where we used to live there isn’t the same kind of neighbourly feel as there once was. I’d love to think that Park Hill could have that sense of community again.”

Brutal list

Listed and loved:

Trellick Tower, London Designed by Erno Goldfinger in 1966, the north Kensington block of flats, offices and shops with a linked 35-storey service tower was built as rented council flats for the GLC, but is now partly in expensive private ownership, listed since 1998, now at second highest Grade II* level.

Barbican Centre, London The flats and arts complex was designed by Chamberlin, Powell Bon and built between 1963 and 1982, listed Grade II in 2001. The Royal Shakespeare Company abandoned it as a London base in 1989, when director Adrian Noble said most “hate the place profoundly”. Now coveted by city workers and 20th-century architecture lovers, a one-bedroom flat boasting an “original Barbican kitchen” is on offer at £585,000.

Rotunda, Birmingham: The 81m circular tower, opened in 1965, was designed as part of the Bullring complex by James A Roberts, built as offices but expensively refurbished in 2008 as apartments, now Grade II listed.

Under threat:

Preston bus station Opened 1969, repeatedly rejected for listing despite being described as “a masterpiece” by the 20th Century Society, now under threat of demolition by the city council.

Robin Hood Gardens, Poplar, east London Designed by Alison and Peter Smithson, completed in 1972, a campaign to have it listed failed despite support from star architects Richard Rogers and Zaha Hadid, and the estate is now under threat of demolition for redevelopment.

Birmingham Central Library Designed by John Madin and opened in 1974, twice proposed for listing by English Heritage but rejected by government, likely to be demolished as the new city library nears completion.

Unlisted, but safe for now:

Hayward Gallery and Queen Elizabeth concert hall Designed by group of young architects for the Greater London Council and opened in 1968. Unlike their near neighbour, the Grade I Royal Festival Hall, they have been granted immunity from listing, meaning they could be demolished in some future redevelopment of the South Bank complex

Demolished:

Gateshead car park Designed by Owen Luder, pulled down in 2010.

Tricorn Centre, Portsmouth Also by Owen Luder, opened in 1966, voted Britain’s most-hated building in 2001, demolished 2004.