Isokon Flats

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The Isokon building

The Isokon building on Lawn Road, Hampstead, London NW3 (originally known as Lawn Road Flats), is a reinforced concrete block of 36 flats (originally 32 flats), designed by the Canadian architect Wells Coates for Molly and Jack Pritchard. It officially opened on the 9th July 1934 as an experiment in minimalist urban living. All of the flats had small kitchens as there was a communal kitchen for the preparation of meals on the ground floor, connected to the residential floors via a dumb waiter. Services, including laundry, bed making and shoe-shining, were provided on site. The building included 22 single flats, 4 double flats, 3 studio flats, staff quarters, kitchen and a large garage. The Pritchards lived in a penthouse flat at the top, with their two sons Jeremy and Jonathan in a flat next door. Plywood was used extensively in the apartments, supplied by the Estonian company Venesta, where Jack Pritchard worked as marketing manager until 1936.

Early famous residents included Bauhaus émigrés Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, László Moholy-Nagy and Naum Slutzky, architects Egon Riss and Arthur Korn, novelist Agatha Christie with her husband archeologist Max Mallowan, and the author Adrian Stokes; Jack and Molly Pritchard lived in the penthouse. The communal kitchen was converted into the Isobar restaurant in 1937 to a design by Marcel Breuer and Maxwell Fry. The flats and particularly the bar became renowned as a centre for intellectual life in north London. Regulars at the Isobar included Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. Jack Pritchard also founded a supper club called The Half Hundred Club. In the mid-1930s, Flat 7 was occupied by Dr Arnold Deutsch, the NKVD agent who recruited the Cambridge Five spy ring, and several other USSR spies also lived in the building. The British architect Sir James Frazer Stirling was briefly a resident during the early 1960s.

Jack Pritchard engaged Walter Gropius as Controller of Design for his Isokon Furniture Company, who in turn recommended Marcel Breuer to design a series of furniture, the most famous being the Long Chair. László Moholy-Nagy functioned as graphics and logotype designer. All three departed for the USA in 1937. In 1939, the Lawn Road Flats residents and architect Egon Riss designed the Isokon Penguin Donkey Mark I with the support of Penguin Books founder Allan Lane but the Isokon Furniture Company ceased with the outbreak of World War II when the supply of plywood from Estonia was cut off. The company was restarted in 1963 with an updated version of the Isokon Penguin Donkey by designer Ernest Race. Since 1982, the historical Isokon furniture collection is made by Chris McCourt through his company Isokon Plus, based in Hackney Wick, through a license granted by Jack Pritchard before his death in 1992.

In 1969 the building was sold by Jack Pritchard to the New Statesman magazine and the Isobar was converted into flats. In 1972 the building was sold to Camden London Borough Council and gradually deteriorated until the 1990s when it was abandoned and lay derelict for several years. In 2003/4 the building was sympathetically refurbished by Avanti Architects, a practice which specialises in the refurbishment of Modernist buildings, for Notting Hill Housing Association and is now primarily occupied by key workers under a co-ownership scheme. The refurbishment has also created a public gallery space in the former garage to tell the story of the building, its notable residents and the Isokon Furniture Company. It is operated by the not-for-profit Isokon Gallery Trust and is open yearly each weekend from March until October.

The block was granted Grade I listed status in 1999 by English Heritage, placing it amongst the most architecturally significant historical buildings in the UK.

References

Cantacuzino, Sherban. 1978. Wells Coates: a monograph. London: Gordon Fraser Gallery. ISBN 978-0900406591.

Pritchard, Jack. 1984. View From A Long Chair. Sydney: Law Book Co of Australasia. ISBN 978-0710202314.

Cohn, Laura. 1999. The Door to a Secret Room: A Portrait of Wells Coates. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-1840146950.

Grieve, Alastair. 2004. Isokon: For Ease, For Ever. London: Isokon Plus. ISBN 0-9548676-0-2.

Powers, Alan. 2007. Modern: The Modern Movement in Britain. Merrill Wilcox House. ISBN 978-1858944050.

Darling, Elizabeth. 2012. Wells Coates. London: RIBA Enterprises. ISBN 978-1859464373.

Burke, David. 2014. The Lawn Road Flats: Spies, Writers and Artists. London: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1843837831.

Isokon furniture designs[edit] Isokon/Venesta Stool (designer unknown, 1933) Isokon Book Units (designed by Wells Coates, 1933) Desk made from Isokon Book Units (designed by Wells Coates, 1933) Aluminium Waste Paper Basket (designed by Walter Gropius, 1935) Side Table GT2 (designed by Walter Gropius, 1936) Isokon Nesting Tables (designed by Marcel Breuer, 1936) Isokon Dining Table (designed by Marcel Breuer, 1936) Isokon Stacking Chairs (designed by Marcel Breuer, 1936) Isokon Long Chair (designed by Marcel Breuer, 1935-6) The Pocket Bottleship (designed by Egon Riss, 1939) The Pocket Bottleship Mark 2 (designed by Ernest Race, 1963) The Penguin Donkey (designer by Egon Riss, 1939) The Penguin Donkey Mark 2 (designed by Ernest Race, 1963) Loop Table (designed by BarberOsgerby, 1996) Flight Stool (designed by BarberOsgerby, 1998) Home Table (designed by BarberOsgerby, 2000) Shell Table and Chair (designed by BarberOsgerby, 2002) Portsmouth Bench (designed by BarberOsgerby, 2002)

External links

• Isokon Gallery
• Page on the site from the Open University
• Camden listed building information
• Historic England. "Details from listed building database ({{{num}}})". National Heritage List for England.
• Jack Pritchard — The Pritchard Papers, University of East Anglia

• Isokon Trust (archive), University of East Anglia
• Wells Coates site
• Avanti Architects project page