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The Brutalist

30/1/2025

Colman House, Hayes (1962) Image from RIBApix.

The Brutalist, the Oscar favourite directed by Brady Corbet and starring Adrien Brody, opened in UK cinemas last week, and so we celebrate the birthday of one of the original brutalists, Rodney Gordon, who was born on 2nd February 1933. Born in Wanstead, Gordon studied architecture at Hammersmith and the Architectural Association, before like many other architects of his generation, going to work for London County Council Architect’s Department. His most notable design during his short stay there was the Michael Faraday substation at Elephant and Castle, a stainless steel box with an oversailing concrete frame. Gordon’s original design had glass panels, allowing the box’s inner workings to be seen, before it was swapped for metal to avoid vandalism.

The Michael Faraday substation under construction. Image from RIBApix.

Gordon then met Owen Luder via fellow LCC designer Dennis Drawbridge, who persuaded both to design what would be an unsuccessful entry in the competition to design the new Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre. They would both join his partnership and go onto design a number of bold, concrete structures all around the suburbs of London, usually for commercial developers such as Alec Colman. One such design was Hendon Hall Court, a block of 54 flats, in a mixture of two and three bedrooms and maisonettes, just off the Great North Way road.

The entrance to Hendon Hall Court (`1966).

The firm also specialized in commercial buildings, often combining offices, flats and shops. A notable example is Eros House in Lewisham for Bernard Sunley Investments, a forceful design in reinforced concrete with a glazed staircase tower on the street side and a small curving concrete staircase at the rear. Gordon decided to extenuate the forcefulness of the design to overcome any possible lack of quality and detailing in the proposed shuttered concrete finish. Architecture critic Ian Nairn hailed the building, saying that it was “A monster sat down in Catford, and just what the place needed”. Despite being on Lewisham’s local list the building has been allowed to be run down by various owners with Luder later disowning it.

Eros House, Catford (1963). Image from RIBApix.

Gordon’s two most famous designs have suffered a worse fate, both demolished at the start of this century. The Trinity Square shopping centre and car park, Gateshead was famously used in the film Get Carter, and demolished in 2010. It was designed to incorporate shops, restaurants and community facilities, as well as a rooftop nightclub that was never opened. At the opposite end of the country, the Tricorn Centre in Portsmouth opened in 1966, also combining shopping, leisure facilities and parking in a tough concrete finish. From opening, the centre had problems with footfall, being located away from the main shopping area of the town. Through the 1980s and 90s, the centre became run down and shops started to close, and it was demolished in 2004.

Design for the Tricorn Centre, Portsmouth.

Gordon didn't just design in concrete. His Grade II listed house and studio designed for himself in Hersham, Surrey, named Turnpoint (1962) uses timber cladding around a steel frame with an angled roofline, the house is raised on stilts with parking underneath. Gordon left the Luder partnership in the 1967, setting up Batir International Architects, later to be called Tripos Architects, alongside Ray Baum and Laurie Abbott (who would go on to work with Richard Rogers, being part of the Pompidou and Lloyds projects).

Turnpoint, Hersham (1962). Image from The Modern House.

Gordon would go on to design the striking Target House on St James Street, Westminster, completed in 1984. It is clad in anodised bronze and aluminum and has a strong vertical emphasis. Like his earlier work with Luder, it is multi-functional, containing shops, offices and flats. Gordon died in 2008, and was largely forgotten save for Jonathan Meades who remarked that “There are as many ideas in a single Gordon building as there are in the entire careers of most architects” and his work was “haunted by Russian constructivism, crusader castles, Levantine skylines”.

The work of Rodney Gordon and Owen Luder features in our new guidebook, Modernism Beyond Metro-Land, which explores the best modernist and brutalist architecture from the eastern and southern suburbs of London. Get your copy HERE

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Anatomy of a House No.20: Dorich House

8/1/2025

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Dorich House, Kingston upon Thames
1936
Dora Gordine, Richard Hare and Henry Cole

Dorich House. Image from Historic England.

Situated on a thin strip of land between the Kingston Vale Road and the south eastern edge of Richmond Park, is one of the most interesting modernist houses of the interwar years. Dorich House was the home cum studio of artist Dora Gordine and her husband Richard Hare from 1936, the house's name was a portmanteau of their first names. The house was designed by Gordine with Hare and the assistance of architect Henry Ivor Cole, in a synthesis of modernism, expressionism and more traditional styles. It has been wonderfully preserved and is now on the ownership of Kingston University, and open to the public throughout the year.

Gordine and Hare enjoying tea on the roof terrace of Dorich House, Image from Historic England.

Gordine was born in Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire, in 1895, the youngest of four children to Russian Jewish parents. The family moved to Tallinn, Estonia in 1912, with Dora becoming involved with the ‘Young Estonia’ group of artists. The group were interested in the Art Nouveau style, with Gordine sculpting in bronze. She moved to Paris to study in 1924, and the following year contributed a mural for the British Pavilion at the 1925 Paris Exhibition, the first public outing of what would be later known as Art Deco. Her sculptures became more and more popular between the mid 1920s and the start of the 1930s, already an acclaimed artist when she met Richard Hare, son of the Earl of Listowel. Gordine was twice married by this point, but in 1936 married Hare with the couple deciding to settle in London and build their own home.

At first they asked architect Godfrey Samuel, formerly of Berthold Lubetkin’s Tecton partnership and later partner of Val Harding, to design a house in Merton Lane, Highgate. That house was not built, with Gordine and Hare instead deciding to build a house to the south west of London on the edge of Richmond Park. The exact genesis of the design for Dorich House is not clear, but it seems it was designed by Gordine and her husband, with architect Henry Ivor Cole employed to oversee the design and fill in any technical bits. Gordine and Hare selected the materials they wanted to use from the Building Centre in London and arranged the contractors themselves. Gordine had no formal architectural training but had commissioned an apartment/studio designed by influential French architect Auguste Perret during her time in France. Perrett was an innovator in concrete construction and a strong influence on the likes of Le Corbusier, Erno Goldfinger and Berthold Lubetkin.

Dora Gordine's Studio, Rue du Belvédère, Paris

However, Dorich House does not take outward influence from this modernist school of design. Unlike the contemporary modernist houses of the 1930s, (like nearby Miramonte by Maxwell Fry), Dorch House does not have white rendered walls, strong horizontal lines or a nautical influence of metal railings and balconies. Instead it is set in an almost square plan, rising to three storeys plus a roof terrace. Unlike its contemporary modernist cousins, whose elevations tended to be scrupulously symmetrical and hinting at an industrial aesthetic, Dorich House’s elevations are individual and reflective of the house as both a studio for art and an object in itself.

The gallery area on the first floor with its arched doorway. Image from Historic England.

The elevation that greets visitors from the driveway has a double-height rounded window bay with thin, vertical windows. The longer facade onto the garden is divided in the centre by a square staircase tower, with an arched doorway, vertical windows at first floor level and half moon windows above. The northern facade is maybe the most interesting. It has two floors of angled, metal framed windows, designed to bring an even light into Gordine’s studios. Depending on which elevation you face, the house appears to be a miniature castle, an expressionist-influenced factory or an artist's workshop. The house is constructed in red brick with some concrete apparent above the doorways and around the balconies, but otherwise hidden.

One of the two studio spaces at Dorich House. Image from Dorich House Museum.

Inside, over the three floors, are a sequence of small but perfectly designed spaces to accommodate Gordine and Hare's private and artistic endeavors. The ground floor was originally home to the servants' bedrooms, with Gordine’s plaster studio also on this level. On the next floor up is another studio space, along with a gallery area, lit by the long, vertical windows. The second floor is home to the couple’s apartment, with a bedroom, and living room and dining room joined by a Chinese moon door, echoing the half moon windows on that level. The living area also has fireplaces which replicate those designed by Perrett for Gordine’s Paris residence. The rooftop is covered in a terrace that the couple used to sleep out on on occasions. From this vantage point, they could see Richmond Park to the north and Roehampton Vale to the south.

The Chinese moon door between the living and dining areas. Image from Dorich House Museum.

Gordine and Hare lived in the house for the rest of their lives. Hare passed away in 1966, and Gordine continued to reside at Dorich House, alone, until her death in 1991. The house, which was listed in 1983 but had fallen into some disrepair over the years, was purchased by Kingston University and restored. The university has made the house into a museum celebrating Gordine’s life and works, open to the public throughout the year.

Dorich House in included in our new guidebook, Modernism Beyond Metro-Land, which covers the finest modernist buildings of the London's eastern and southern boroughs. Sign up for your copy HERE

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The Brutalist

Anatomy of a House No.20: Dorich House

Dorich House, Kingston upon Thames 1936 Dora Gordine, Richard Hare and Henry Cole

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Dorich House, Kingston upon Thames
1936
Dora Gordine, Richard Hare and Henry Cole