MID-CENTURY MODERNISM

Mid-Century modern denotes a style of design that was popularized from the late 1930s through to the 1970s, as an evolution of the earlier more avant-garde International modernist style.

This period is largely characterised by a contemporary, seemingly futuristic aesthetic and an emphasis on function. Flat planes, clean lines and little ornamentation often characterise the exteriors. whilst post-war austerity often affected the use and availabilty of materials.

willow road, Hampstead NW3

No. 2 Willow Road forms part of a terrace of three houses designed by Hungarian architect Ernö Goldfinger and was completed in 1939.

The houses were constructed from an external concrete frame with exposed load-bearing concrete columns at ground floor and faced in red brick above (a concession to the controversy the design caused at the time) . It comprises of strong clean modernist lines, with a large continuous single white window frame stretching across all three houses at the first floor.

No 2, Goldfinger’s home, was handed over to the National Trust in 1993.

**2 Willow Road, Hampstead, London NW3 1TH**

SPA GREEN ESTATE, CLERKENWELL EC1V

Sadler House, part of a pioneering social housing project designed by Berthold Lubetkin and completed in 1949.

A rich chequerboard pattern modelled in three dimensions and enforced by a serpentine plan.

Grade 2* Listed

**Sadler House, Spa Green Estate, St John Street, London EC1V 4PP**

Chrisp Street Market Clock tower, E14

The clock tower was conceived as part of Chrisp Street Market, a pedestrianised shopping precinct and open-air market place, designed in 1949 by Frederick Gibberd as the commercial centre of the new Lansbury estate and a key element of the Live Architecture Exhibition held as part of the Festival of Britain.

It is a striking example of early post-war architecture and a primary example of the aesthetic which became known as ‘Festival style’.

**Market Square, Chrisp Street, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, London, E14 6AQ**

STACK HOUSE, belgravia SW1W

Built between 1950-52, this striking example of a postwar apartment block was designed as one of four in a landscaped setting by architects T.P. Bennett.

Designed in the ‘moderne’ style, it demonstrates an eclectic mix of architectural characteristics, which architectural historian Nicholas Pevsner described as ‘funny creatures’. The contextual detailing of upright red brick elevations with mock Georgian sash windows are softened by thirties inspired long rounded balconies and large coloured cylindrical columns typical of the fifties.

The Cundy Street Estate was issued with a Certificate of Immunity in 2018 with plans in place to demolish the estate for redevelopment.

**Stack House, Cundy Street, Belgravia, London SW1W 9JS**

NEVIL HOUSE, LOUGHBOROUGH ESTATE, BRIXTON, SW9

Built between 1954 and 1957, the Loughborough Estate contained over 1,000 dwellings spread over high and low-rise buildings, including nine eleven-storey 'slab' blocks.

Designed by a small team in the Housing Division of the London County Council Architect’s Department, they had a strikingly modernist aesthetic.

The slab blocks later became a standard model for the housing programme, and were arguably built to greatest effect on the Alton Estate in Roehampton.

**Nevil House, Rupert Gardens, Loughborough Estate, Brixton, London SW9 7TW**

JAMES HAMMETT HOUSE, DORSET ESTATE, BETHNAL GREEN, E2

The Dorset Estate was a designed by Skinner, Bailey & Lubetkin and completed in 1957.

Lubetkin’s use of large concrete rectangular slabs on the exterior of the building creates a decorative pattern. It reflected a style of Modernism that would soon be overtaken by the undecorated Brutalist style, which would dominate the design of council housing.

**James Hammett House, Rave Ravenscroft Street, Bethnal Green, London, E2 7QJ**

TreVELYAN & Sulkin House, Globe Town, London E2

Trevelyan and Sulkin House; designed by Denys Lasdun in 1952 and completed in 1958, are two eight storey tower blocks arranged in a butterfly plan. The blocks are built in a cluster style, where-by several blocks protrude from a central service shaft.

**Trevelyan House, Morpeth Street, Globe Town, London E2 0PY**

**Sulkin House, Knottisford Street, Globe Town, London E2 0PR**

The London Planetarium, Marylebone NW1

Located on the site of a former cinema destroyed by bombing in World War II, this was the first large-scale planetarium in Britain, designed by architect George Watt with the engineers Travers Morgan & Partners.

An archetypal 1950’s architecture; futuristic and optimistic for the ‘space age’, it took the form of a tall pre-cast concrete dome clad in copper, resting upon a circular concrete slab approximately 25 metres in diameter; this in turn was carried on a ring of twelve columns, set well back around the circumference of the slab to create a deep canopy.

The planetarium was opened to the public in 1958 and closed in 2006. The building has now been incorporated into the adjoining Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.

**The London Planetarium, Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LR**

Congress House

The headquarters of the Trades Union movement, designed by David du Roi Aberdeen and was officially opened in 1958.

The principal elevation to Great Russell Street is a rectangular block on pilotis; with a glazed recessed ground floor and upper floors with continuous strip windows alternating with bands of granite cladding,

The plinth in front of the entrance supports a bronze sculpture by Bernard Meadows representing the spirit of trade unionism with the strong helping the weak.

Congress House is now Grade 2* listed.

**Congress House, 23-28 Great Russell Street, Holborn, London WC1B 3LS**

Churchill gardens, PIMLICO SW1V

Churchill Gardens was a pioneering development completed under the ambitious Abercrombie Plan to redevelop the London capital along more efficient lines, with its Le Corbusier-inspired blocks marching across the landscape by the river. It was built between 1946-1962 by the architects Powell & Moya and is now a conservation area.

**Chaucer House, Churchill Gardens Road, Pimlico, London SW1V 3DW**

**Pimlico Fish Bar, 103 Lupus Street, Pimlico, London SW1V 3EN**

**Hawthorne House, Churchill Gardens, Pimlico, London SW1V**

Falmer House, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1

The University of Sussex was the first of seven new or 'utopian' universities built in England after the Second World War. In January 1959 Basil Spence and Partners were commissioned to build Falmer House. This marked the beginning of the first building phase of Spence’s masterplan for the University that was to be undertaken over a period of 15 years.

Falmer House is a brick faced, vault-and-column structure. It is a three storey, square-plan building with an inner courtyard. The inner courtyard is separated from the building by a 15-foot wide moat running around the inside of the quadrangle. Pre-cast concrete vaults cover the ground floor arcade. The upper floor voids, which can be used as roof terraces, were intended for further expansion. Spence used different concrete finishes with the local brickwork to create visual contrast.

Falmer House is now a Grade I listed building.

**Falmer House, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QF**

Torrens Court, Denmark Hill, SE5

After World War II the Camberwell Metropolitan Borough Council embarked upon a vigorous programme of home building. commissioning the Denmark Hill Estate in 1950 to provide 682 homes.

This six storey block of flats featured individual balconies accessed from the kitchens, useful for clothes drying.

**Torrens Court, Denmark Hill Estate, London SE5 8HJ**

144 Southwark Street, BANKSIDE SE1

An office building constructed between 1959-60 by a firm of consulting engineers for their own occupation.

The large areas of the fenestration are enclosed by a projecting concrete frame and bookended with brickwork staircases.

**Titan House, 144 Southwark Street, Bankside, London SE1 0UP**

GOLDEN LANE ESTATE, CITY OF LONDON EC1Y

The Golden Lane Estate (1952 – 1962) sits adjacent to the Barbican Estate. Designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, the now Grade II listed estate contains 559 homes, of which 385 flats are flats and 174 are maisonettes. About half are now in private ownership, and half remain as social housing owned by the City of London.

The dominating feature is Great Arthur House, the only tower block in the estate, which is roughly in the centre and makes a bold statement with its overall bright yellow colour.

**Crescent House, Goswell Road, Golden Lane Estate, London EC1Y 0SL**

**Great Arthur House, Golden Lane Estate, Fann Street, Barbican EC1Y 0SJ**

**Basterfield House, Golden Lane Estate, Fann Street, Barbican EC1Y 0TN**

LONDON COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION, ELEPHANT & CASTLE, SE1

A classic example of modernism from the radical Architects Department of London County Council. An aluminium-clad tower with low rise workshop, design and media blocks, first opened in 1964.

Elephant & Castle Shopping centre, SE1

This was the first covered shopping mall in Europe, with 120 shops on three levels and a two-storey underground car-park. Designed by Boissevain & Osmond and opened in March 1965, it represented an entirely new approach to retailing, setting standards for the sixties that would revolutionise shopping concepts throughout Britain.

The centre has now been demolished to make way for a new development which is part a £4 billion regeneration programme scheme by Southwark Council.

**New Kent Road, Elephant and Castle, London SE1 6TE**

Cranbrook Estate, Bethnal Green, E2

Built in 1955-1966 and located on nearly 17 acres of slum-cleared land between Old Ford and Roman Road at the south-west corner of Victoria Park, Cranbrook Estate was one the largest housing redevelopments of its time.

Putueaux House is one of the six higher blocks are named after towns from around the world that Bethnal Green is twinned.

Designed by Francis Skinner, Douglas Bailey and Berthold Lubetkin. Lubetkin was a Russian émigré architect who pioneered modernist design in Britain in the 1930s.

**Puteaux House, Mace Street, Bethnal Green, London E2 0RF**

Apex Drive, Frimley, Camberley, Surrey GU16

The Apex Drive development (1966) was designed by Lawrence Abbot and built by the Apex Society, founded in 1965, to provide 'affordable housing in Greater London and the Home Counties'.

The development is made up of eight blocks, each containing four apartments with grey brick exteriors and protruding curved staircases.

They’re locally listed by Surrey Heath Borough Council as ‘Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest’.

**8 Apex Drive, Frimley, Camberley, Surrey GU16 7AF**

Brixton Market, Electric Avenue, BRIXTON SW9

Foxes and Cherries - a sculpture created by local artist Lucy Casson in 2010, found above a 1960’s two storey concrete infill on a war bombed site on Brixton’s historic Electric Avenue.

**Brixton Market, Electric Avenue, Brixton, London SW9 8JX**

APEX CLOSE, BECKENHAM BR3

Bold sculptural brick forms at Apex Close, off The Avenue.

The Apex Close Housing Trust was set up by Derek Sharp Associates in 1966 . The building of Apex Close took place between 1966 and 1967 and consists of duplex apartments with the upper duplexes reached from a rather extravagant elevated walkway.

Locally listed by Bromley Council.

WATNEY MARKET, SHADWELL, E1

**Watney Market, Watney Street, Shadwell, London E1 2PR**

THE BATTLESHIP BUILDING, PADDINGTON, W2

The former British Rail maintenance depot for road vehicles. Designed in 1968 by Paul Hamilton, who had to fit it into a site constrained by the elevated Westway, the Harrow Road and the railways.

The nickname of Battleship Building comes from its shape which, it has been said, looks like it has "reared like a battleship over the turbulence of the motorway."

Grade II listed in 1994 it was sensitively converted into offices in 2000 by architects AHMM.

**The Battleship Building, 179 Harrow Road, Paddington Basin, London W2 6NB**

AYLESBURY, YORK AVENUE, HOVE BN3

An eight storey concrete apartment block with concrete floor banding, brick infill cladding and a cantilevered balcony / bay window configuration with stack bonded brickwork. Circa 1968.

**Aylesbury, York Avenue, Hove, East Sussex BN3**

No. 1 CROYDON, CR0

No. 1 Croydon (formally the NLA Tower) was one of many new commercial buildings constructed in the growing town of Croydon in the 1960s. It has 24 storeys and is 82 metres high.

**No. 1 Croydon, 12–16 Addiscombe Road,** **Croydon** **CR0 0XT**

123 VICTORIA STREET, SW1E

A gridded reflective facade of this mixed-use building that lies a short walk away from the major transport hub of Victoria station in central London.

Designed by EPR Architects and constructed between 1973-75, the building features rows of windows that angle outwards to form transparent, box-like forms across the facade.

**123 Victoria St, Westminster, London SW1E 6RA**