Isokon

The Isokon building

The London-based Isokon firm was founded in 1929 to design and construct modernist houses and flats, and subsequently furniture and fittings for them. Originally called Wells Coates and Partners, the name was changed in 1931 to Isokon, a name derived from Isometric Unit Construction, bearing an allusion to Constructivism.

Unusually for a design company, its directors were the bacteriologist and later psychiatrist Molly Pritchard, the solicitor Frederick Graham-Maw, son of Frederick James Maw, the founder of the law firm Rowe and Maw, and the economist Robert S Spicer. In actuality, the company was run by Molly's husband Jack Pritchard whose initial involvement was to handle the economics, publicity and marketing, but who later went on to hire designers and direct the company. Jack Pritchard had become the British marketing manager for the internationally successful Estonian plywood company Venesta in 1926 and had hired Charlotte Perriand through Le Corbusier to design a trade fair stand for the company at Olympia, London in 1929. Despite his involvement with Lawn Road Flats and the Isokon Furniture Company, Pritchard continued to work for Venesta until 1936.

The Isokon Furniture Company was never commercially successful. The end came with the outbreak of World War II when its supply of plywood from Venesta in Estonia was cut off. The Isokon Furniture Company ceased production in 1939 but was restarted in 1963. Since 1982, the furniture is made by Isokon Plus, formerly known as Windmill Furniture.

Lawn Road Flats

Isokon's key project was the Lawn Road Flats in Hampstead, since 1972 called the Isokon building, which was formally opened on 9 July 1934. Intended to be the last word in contemporary modernist living, the block of flats was aimed at young professionals. It contained 22 single flats, four double flats, three studio flats, staff quarters, kitchens and a large garage. Services included shoe cleaning, laundry, bed making and food sent up by a dumb waiter at the spine of the building. In 1937, a club designed by Marcel Breuer and Maxwell Fry called the Isobar – located on the ground floor with a decked outdoor area - was added to the complex. Its first manager was Philip Harben, who after World War II became the first TV celebrity chef at the BBC. Jack Pritchard also set up a supper club called The Half Hundred Club, so named because it could have no more than 25 members who could bring 25 guests. They dined either at the Isobar, at Pritchard's penthouse flat in the Isokon building or at more exotic locations, such as London Zoo.

The flats and the Isobar became famous as a centre for intellectual life in north London. Residents included the novelist Agatha Christie and her husband archeologist Max Mallowan, the Soviet spy Arnold Deutsch. the author Nicholas Monsarrat, ethnomusicologist Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and textile designers Jacques Groag and his wife Jacqueline Groag. Regulars at the Isobar included the sculptors Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth and the painter Ben Nicholson.

In 1955, Jack Pritchard staged a 21st-birthday party for the building on its roof top terrace. Philip Harben made he food, architectural writer Nikolaus Pevsner made a speech and letters from Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer were read out. Wells Coates as well as many pre-World War II residents attended the event.

The building was sold by Jack Pritchard in 1969 to the magazine New Statesman, who in turn sold it on to Camden Council in 1972 for twice the price. The building was listed Grade II in 1974 by English Heritage and listed Grade I in 1999. Despite this, it received poor maintenance from Camden Council and deteriorated badly. After a long campaign to save the building, it was sold to the housing association Notting Hill Housing Group in 2003, in a joint bid with modernist building restorers Avanti Architects, with the pledge that a museum would open in the building. It nows contains 36 flats, most that are owned on Equity sharing basis by key workers such as nurses and teachers. In July 2014, the building's garage was finally converted into a gallery space [1] with a permanent exhibition that tells the story of the building, its residents and the Isokon Furniture Company. It is operated by the not-for-profit charitable Isokon Gallery Trust.

Bauhaus in Britain

In 1935, Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus, became Controller of Design for The Isokon Furniture Company. He had arrived in England on 18 October 1934 with his wife Ise Gropius. They lived in flat 15 at Lawn Road Flats until March 1937, when they left for the USA. A month before he left for the USA, Gropius recommended Marcel Breuer, a former colleague at the Bauhaus who had moved into flat 16 in the building in early 1935, as his replacement as Controller of Design. The furniture Breuer designed whilst at Isokon are highly influential pieces of the modernist movement, and included chairs, tables and the Long and Short Chair.

László Moholy-Nagy, another former Bauhaus teacher who also lived briefly in the building with his wife Sybil Moholy-Nagy, became involved with Isokon when he arrived in Britain from Germany in May 1935. Moholy-Nagy designed promotional material for the Isokon Furniture Company, including sales leaflets, showcards and the logo of the Isokon firm itself, which was an outline of curved plywood chair.

The fourth Bauhaus teacher at Lawn Road Flats was Naum Slutzky, a Russian born goldsmith. He remained in Britain for the rest of his life and is buried in Stevenage.

Isokon furniture revival

Jack Pritchard revived the Isokon Furniture Company in 1963 after his retirement. Changes in the manufacture of plywood meant a redesign of some of the key pieces in the Isokon portfolio, for which Pritchard hired Ernest Race, former furniture designer for the Festival of Britain. In 1968, Pritchard licensed John Alan Designs in Camden to produce the Long Chair, Nesting Tables and the Isokon Penguin Donkey Mk 2, which the company did until 1980.

Jack and Molly retired to their home designed by Jack's daughter Jennifer Jones (née Tudor Hart) and her husband Colin in 1966. The modern bungalow, called Isokon, turns heads to this day in Blythburgh, Suffolk.

In 1982, Chris McCourt of Windmill Furniture was granted the license to manufacture the historical Isokon furniture pieces by Jack Pritchard. From 1999, the Isokon furniture is sold through his now renamed company Isokon Plus, previously based in Chiswick, London. Since 2014, Isokon Plus is located in Hackney Wick, East London.

The first furniture to be added to the Isokon portfolio since 1963 was designed by the duo BarberOsgerby. Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby had recently graduated from the Royal College of Art when they designed their first piece, the Loop Table, in 1996. The iconic bent plywood design was to be the first of several furniture pieces that the designers created for Isokon Plus. The most recent is the Bodleian Chair for the University of Oxford's historic Bodleian Libraries.

Isokon furniture designs

References

  1. ↑ gallery space

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.

External links

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