The Lawn Road Flats: Spies, Writers and Artists (History of British Intelligence)

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restrict its use for infectious patients. A short article in The Times on 22nd December 1880 further inflamed public concern.

Please note that all areas, measurements and distances given in these particulars are approximate and rounded. Where the artists went, the critics followed, Nikolaus Pevsner and Herbert Read came, ate and drank, while Modern Movement architects were often found propping up the Isobar, particularly Erich Mendelsohn, Serge Chermayeff and of course, Wells Coates. Publisher and poet Francis Meynell recalled members were “all word-wise, as well as food-wise.” These genteel cultural pleasures, created jointly by chef and clientele, resulted in a long waiting list for membership at the Isobar right up until war broke out in 1939.In 2014 the Isokon Gallery Trust was established by John Allan and Fiona Lamb of Avanti Architects. With the help of the National Trust, and to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the building, they have created an exhibition space on the ground floor of the building, which tells the remarkable story of its architecture, its residents and its iconic Isokon furniture. This combination of radical architecture and politics, alongside adventurous cooking proved to be irresistible for many of Hampstead’s local artists. Regular exhibitions were held in the Isobar and the basement transformed itself into an informal north-London salon, regularly attended by Adrian Stokes, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo. The census collection is designed so that each group of postcodes should contain at least 100 people (50 in Scotland). consequently renamed the North-Western Hospital. It became the Lawn Road or North-Western branch of the Royal followed a strict protocol of clothes changing and hair washing) was spreading disease into the locality. This proved to be true and the Hospital was closed in 1872.

Outside: To the front of the house there are shrubs and hedging, the driveway gives off road parking and leads to the double garage although currently half of the garage has been partitioned of to create a hobby room as shown in photo 13, the other half of the garage has been retained and has an electric door to front as well as a personal door to the rear garden. There are gates giving access to the rear garden. This is a splendid feature of the house and has a good sized lawned area. There is extensive paving adjacent to the property and behind the aforementioned gates. There are a great variety of shrubs, a pergola, some trees, and a summerhouse/shed. A gate at the bottom of the garden then accesses an area of additional garden. This tree line we are told also belongs to this house although the current fence line runs in front of it. Woodland walk shown in picture 12.The bitterly cold night of Breuer’s farewell dinner in December 1937 was to be the last service run by Tommy Layton, the pioneering resident chef who procured rare and interesting beers for the Isobar members. He was replaced by Philip Harben, a flamboyant and charismatic cook who would go on to become one of Britain’s first television chefs. At Lawn Road, he was renowned for his adventurous cuisine, as well as his charisma, ostentatiously claiming that he “could scramble eggs and make mayonnaise long before [he] could read Thucydides or solve a quadratic equation.” This is an exceedingly rare opportunity to acquire one of the most important penthouses in London, positioned at the top of the Isokon, a building widely recognised as one of the finest achievements of Modern Movement architecture in the UK. Designed by the eminent architect Wells Coates and completed in 1934, the Isokon has been given a Grade I listing by English Heritage, placing it among the most historically important buildings in Britain. It has an outstanding location on a quiet road in Belsize Park. Lounge - 4.78m x 3.37m (15'8" x 11'0" ) - UPVC double glazed window to front, radiator, natural bamboo wood flooring, contemporary fitted fireplace with electric fire having bath stone effect mantel and hearth. Burke intersperses his painstakingly detailed research with fascinating glimpses of life at the time, drawing on stories and letters that bring his account into vivid relief." To the front is a gravel driveway which leads to the side of the property and offers ample parking with an area of lawn to the front with established front boundary.

The re-vamped Isokon Building opened in 2004 with 25 flats for key-workers on a shared ownership basis and 11 for private ownership. Understandably, in a city with such a pronounced shortage of housing, the Isobar was not re-instated, but the Isokon Gallery Trust has overseen the conversion of the former garages into the Isokon Gallery, an exhibition space which tells the story of the building, its residents, the Isobar and the Isokon Furniture Company. Coates’s detailed plan for the flats owed a lot to the architectural developments of continental Europe. As a member of the influential Congrès internationaux d’architecture moderne (C.I.A.M.) whose illustrious membership included Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Alvar Aalto, Sigfried Giedion, Berthold Lubetkin, Maxwell Fry and Ernő Goldfinger, Coates was stewed in the theory and practice of Europe’s architectural avant-garde. Importantly, it was Molly Pritchard who drew up the concept and the brief for the Lawn Road Flats, drawing on Gropius’s notion of the ‘Minimum Flat’ delivered at the C.I.A.M. conference of 1929. Molly delivered the brief to Coates, stipulating that they reflect ‘modern lifestyles’ and were to be aimed at young working women, as well as men. For Scotland, 2011 data is shown (update coming soon, the Scottish census was delayed by a year unlike the rest of the UK).A very rare opportunity to acquire a one-bedroom apartment on the ground floor of the Isokon Building, widely recognised as one of the finest achievements of Modern Movement architecture. Designed by the eminent architect Wells Coates and completed in 1934, the Isokon has been given a Grade I listing by English Heritage, placing it among the most historically important buildings in Britain. It has an outstanding location on a quiet road in Belsize Park. The building’s list of former residents includes Bauhaus members [Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, László Maholy-Nagy] Soviet spies [Arnold Deutsch] and authors [Agatha Christie]. Can you tell us more about the creative community fostered in and around Isokon?

The building was designated a Grade I listed structure in 1999, placing it amongst the most significant historic buildings in England. An English Heritage blue plaque was fixed in 2018 to commemorate the residence of the Bauhaus masters Gropius, Breuer and Moholy-Nagy.

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Lawn Road is a quiet residential street in North London’s well-to-do Hampstead but for decades it saw the dramatic decay of one of England’s ground breaking modern buildings. Now the Lawn Road Flats are restored – and reveal again an ambitious concept of modern living conceived seventy years ago. Find sources: "Isokon Flats"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( September 2014) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Amidon LA 1996 An Illustrated History of the Royal Free Hospital. London, Special Trustees of the Royal Free Hospital. Exterior To The Rear - Paved patio area adjoining property with steps leading to the remainder of the garden which is laid to artificial grass with various mature and attractive planting with timber shed located to the rear of the garden. Coates was inspired by Le Corbusier, who believed that buildings should be “machines for living”, and as a result the 32 flats were designed to create the greatest possible utility and comfort out of constricted dimensions. They had simple built-in plywood furniture. Early advertising stated: “All you have to bring with you is a rug, an armchair and a picture.”