Isokon Flats, also known as Lawn Road Flats and the Isokon building, on Lawn Road,

Belsize Park Belsize Park is a residential area of Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden, in the Inner London, inner North West London, north-west of London, England. The residential streets are lined with Georgian and Victorian villas and mews houses. ...

in the

London Borough of Camden The London Borough of Camden () is a London boroughs, borough in Inner London, England. Camden Town Hall, on Euston Road, lies north of Charing Cross. The borough was established on 1 April 1965 from the former Metropolitan boroughs of the Cou ...

, is a reinforced-concrete block of 36 flats (originally 32), designed by Canadian engineer

Wells Coates Wells Wintemute Coates (December 17, 1895 – June 17, 1958) was an architect, designer and writer. He was, for most of his life, an expatriate Canadian who is best known for his work in England, the most notable of which is the Modernist block ...

for Molly and

Jack Pritchard John Craven Pritchard (8 June 1899 – 27 April 1992) was a British furniture entrepreneur, who was very influential between the First and Second World Wars. His work is exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Museum of London. He ...

Pre-war years

Designs for the flats were developed between 1929–1932 and the complex opened on 9 July 1934 as an experiment in minimalist urban living. All of the "Existenzminimum" flats had very small kitchens as there was a communal kitchen for the preparation of meals, connected to the residential floors via a

dumb waiter A dumbwaiter is a small freight elevator or lift intended to carry food. Dumbwaiters found within modern structures, including both commercial, public and private buildings, are often connected between multiple floors. When installed in restauran ...

. Services, including laundry and shoe-polishing, were provided on site. The building originally included 24 studio flats, eight one-bedroom flats, staff quarters, a kitchen and a large garage. The Pritchards lived in a one-bedroom penthouse flat at the top with their two sons Jeremy and Jonathan next door in a studio flat. Plywood was used extensively in the fittings of the apartments; Jack Pritchard was marketing manager for the

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

n plywood company Venesta between 1926 and 1936, while he also operated the Isokon Furniture Company, originally in partnership with

. Celebrated residents included:

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the , was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined Decorative arts, crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., ...

émigrés

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (; 18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-born American architect and founder of the Bauhaus, Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He was a founder of ...

Marcel Breuer Marcel Lajos Breuer ( ; 21 May 1902 – 1 July 1981) was a Hungarian-American modernist architect and furniture designer. He moved to the United States in 1937 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1944. At the Bauhaus he designed the Was ...

, and

László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Kingdom of Hungary, Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by Constructivism (art), con ...

; architects Egon Riss and

Arthur Korn Arthur Korn (20 May 1870 – 21 December/22 December 1945) was a German physicist, mathematician and inventor. He was involved in the development of the fax machine, specifically the transmission of photographs or telephotography, known as the ...

; writer

Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English people, English author known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving ...

(between 1941 and 1947) and her husband

Max Mallowan Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan, (6 May 1904 – 19 August 1978) was a prominent British archaeologist and academic, specializing in the Ancient Near East. Having studied classics at Oxford University, he was trained for archaeology by Leonard W ...

, art historian Adrian Stokes, the author

Nicholas Monsarrat Lieutenant Commander Nicholas John Turney Monsarrat FRSL RNVR ( 22 March 19108 August 1979) was a British novelist known for his sea stories, particularly '' The Cruel Sea'' (1951) and ''Three Corvettes'' (1942–1945), but perhaps known be ...

, the archaeologist

V. Gordon Childe Vere Gordon Childe (14 April 189219 October 1957) was an Australian archaeologist who specialised in the study of European prehistory. He spent most of his life in the United Kingdom, working as an academic for the University of Edinburgh and ...

, modernist architect

Jacques Groag Jacques Groag (5 February 1892 – 28 January 1962) was an architect and an interior designer, originally from Moravia. Early life and education Jacques Groag was born in 1892 in Olomouc to a well known Jewish family who lived in a malt ho ...

and his wife, textile designer

Jacqueline Groag Jacqueline Groag ( Hilde Pick; 6 April 1903 – 13 January 1986) was an influential textile designer in Great Britain in the period following World War II. She produced and designed fabrics for leading Parisian fashion houses including Chane ...

. The communal kitchen was converted into the Isobar restaurant in 1937, to a design by Marcel Breuer and F. R. S. Yorke. The flats and particularly the Isobar became renowned as a centre for socialist intellectual and artistic life in Hampstead. Regular visitors to the Isobar included nearby residents

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental Bronze sculpture, bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore ...

Barbara Hepworth Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth (10 January 1903 – 20 May 1975) was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. Along with artists such as Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a leadin ...

and

Ben Nicholson Benjamin Lauder Nicholson, OM (10 April 1894 – 6 February 1982) was an English painter of abstract compositions (sometimes in low relief), landscapes, and still-life. He was one of the leading promoters of abstract art in England. Backg ...

Espionage

A number of Isokon residents were later identified as

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

agents and the building was subject to surveillance by the British security services in the 1930s and during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

period. In the mid-1930s Flat 7 was occupied by Dr Arnold Deutsch, the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

agent who recruited the

Cambridge Five The Cambridge Five was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during the Second World War and the Cold War and was active from the 1930s until at least the early 1950s. None of the known members were e ...

spy

Jürgen Kuczynski Jürgen Kuczynski (; 17 September 1904 – 6 August 1997) was a German economist, journalist, and communist. He also provided intelligence to the Soviet Union during World War II. By 1936, Kuczynski had followed his father and other family into ...

lived at Isokon while teaching economics at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

Post-war years

The

Isokon The London-based Isokon firm was founded in 1929 by the English entrepreneur Jack Pritchard and the Canadian architect Wells Coates to design and construct modernist houses and flats, and furniture and fittings for them. Originally called Wells ...

furniture company ceased trading at the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

but was restarted in 1963. The British architect Sir James Frazer Stirling was a resident during the early 1960s. In 1969 the building was sold to the ''

New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...

'' magazine and the Isobar was converted into flats. In 1972 the building was sold to

Camden London Borough Council Camden London Borough Council, also known as Camden Council, legally The Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of Camden, is the local authority for the London Borough of Camden in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one o ...

and gradually deteriorated until the 1990s when it was abandoned and lay derelict for several years.

Rescue and refurbishment

In 2003 the building was sympathetically refurbished by Avanti Architects, a practice which specialises in the renovation of modernist buildings, for the

Notting Hill Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a wikt:cosmopolitan, cosmopolitan and multiculturalism, multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting ...

Housing Association In Ireland and the United Kingdom, housing associations are private, Non-profit organization, non-profit organisations that provide low-cost "Public housing in the United Kingdom, social housing" for people in need of a home. Any budget surpl ...

which purchased it from

remains the freeholder. During the comprehensive restoration, the services were completely renewed, heating and insulation discreetly upgraded and the later overcoat of render removed from the exterior. The building now has a smooth external finish and is the palest tint of pink in colour, as it was originally—not pure white as has been assumed from black and white historical photos. The building is now partly occupied by

key worker A key worker is a worker in an occupation given preferential treatment by government policy. They may be exempted from rules which apply to the general population or prioritized for the receipt of benefits. Reasons for preferential treatment ...

s under a shared-ownership scheme whilst the larger flats have been sold outright.

Isokon Gallery

As part of the refurbishment, an exhibition gallery was created in the former garage, run since 2014 wholly by volunteers as a non-profit micro-museum to tell the story of the building, the social and artistic life of its residents and the

furniture company. The gallery is open weekends only, 11.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. from the beginning of March until the end of November. Flats in the Isokon building are private and cannot be visited, except during Open House in September each year.

Designation

The building was designated a

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

structure in 1999, placing it amongst the most significant historic buildings in England. An English Heritage

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom, and certain other countries and territories, to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving a ...

was fixed in 2018 to commemorate the residence of the Bauhaus masters Gropius, Breuer and Moholy-Nagy. ISKON_Lawn_Road_flats_%26_Blue_plaque

Publications

* * *

References

External links

Isokon GalleryPage on the site from the Open UniversityCamden listed building information
*

— The Pritchard Papers, University of East Anglia{{coord, 51, 33, 06.63, N, 00, 09, 43.50, W, type:landmark, display=title
Isokon Trust (archive), University of East AngliaWells Coates siteAvanti Architects project page
1934 establishments in England 1934 in London Apartment buildings in London Art Deco architecture in London Belsize Park Grade I listed buildings in the London Borough of Camden Grade I listed residential buildings Houses in Hampstead Modernist architecture in London Residential buildings completed in 1934 Restored and conserved buildings Wells Coates buildings