MODERNISM IN METRO-LAND
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Three Modernist Mews Houses in NW1

29/10/2024

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The modernist mews houses came to the fore in London in the early 1960s as the first post war generation of architects sought to build their own homes, with the rundown backstreets of Camden a particularly fertile area to find an affordable plot of land. Here we present three examples you may come across wandering around NW1.

2 Regal Lane, Primrose Hill, Camden
1961
John Winter
​

A three storey house on a mews opposite Regents Park, this home was designed and built by architect John Winter for himself and his family in the early 1960s whilst working in the office of Erno Goldfinger. A set of garages were on the plot when Winter and his wife Val bought it, and they incorporated the old buildings into their new home. The house was constructed using reclaimed brick, in situ concrete and large windows, allowing light into the house on its narrow plot. The house also features a steel spiral staircase which reaches all the way up to the top floor with the master bedroom and a balcony facing towards the park. Winter extended his original design both before and after before moving to his corten steel house in Swains Lane, Highgate. Winter also designed two further houses in Regal Lane in 1963, Nos.10 & 11, two connected houses in brick with a carport on the ground floor.

15-19 Murray Mews
1964-65

Team 4

Down an indistinct side mews to the east of Camden Town is an early project by two of the most famous names in the second half of 20th century architecture. 15-19 Murray Mews was one of a handful of projects by partnership of Team 4, the short-lived practice made up of Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Su Brumwell, Wendy Cheesman and Georgie Wolton. The practice only lasted for 4 years, with Wolton leaving after a few months, but produced a handful of influential designs.
One of them was this group of three houses in Camden, all squeezed onto a small plot. The houses open straight out on the street and have a private courtyard at the rear with glazed walls, allowing light into the interior. The houses are constructed of red brick walls and concrete floors, with a sloping glass roof. The tribulations of the houses construction, with an unscrupulous builder ignoring many details of the houses designs, led the practice to look at alternative materials and construction, paving the way for their glass and steel High Tech future. A large number of other houses were built along Murray Mews, including those by Tom Kay (No.22), Richard Gibson (No.20) and David and Ann Hyde-Harrison (No.33).

62 Camden Mews
1962-5

Edward Cullinan

Edward ‘Ted’ Cullinan began his career working for Denys Lasdun, working on projects like the Royal College of Physicians and the University of East Anglia. In 1960 he decided to build a house for himself and his family on an empty lot on Camden Mews. He produced a design for a house facing south with an open plan living area on the first floor, with windows angled to maximize sunlight through the day, but also provide shade in high summer. Bedrooms were placed on the ground floor, with the letter box emptying into the main bedroom, an idea that allows the Sunday newspaper to be delivered directly to bed! 

The two floors are connected by an external staircase via a terrace on the garage roof, and a smaller internal spiral staircase.The house was built between 1962 and 64 by Cullinan with friends and family of a few years, on weekends and when time allowed, using a mixture of timber, brick and concrete, bought , borrowed and stolen (or at least reclaimed). Cullinan and family lived at 62 Camden Mews until Cullian’s death in 2019, with the house recently going on the market for the first time. As on Murray Mews, the 1960s, 70s and 80s saw a number of young architects build houses on Camden Mews, such as Jon Howard (No.74), Peter Bell (no.4) and Sheila Bull (No.23).


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Anatomy of a House No.18: Hauer King House

23/10/2024

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Picture
The front of the Hauer King house by night.

Anatomy of a House No.18

Hauer King House,  40 Douglas Road, Canonbury, Islington
1993-94
Future Systems

The leafy streets of Canonbury in the borough of Islington are largely made up of elegant Georgian terraces, the result of speculative building from the start of the 19th century. But amongst these genteel homes is a visitor from the future. 40 Douglas Road, or the Hauer King House as it is also known, was designed by the aptly named Future Systems, the partnership of Jan Kaplicky and Amanda Levete. Kaplicky was born in Prague in 1937, training as an architect before leaving the country during the Prague spring of 1968, and settling in London. He had quite the CV of working for post war architects, spending time at Denys Lasdun & Partners, Rogers and Piano, Eva Jiricna, Spence + Webster and Foster Associates. Levete was born in Bridgend, Wales in November 1955, studying at the Architectural Association and then working for Alsop & Lyall and the Richard Rogers Partnership. Future Systems had been founded in 1979 by Kaplicky and David Nixon, who had worked together at Foster Associates, and joined 10 years later by Levete. 
Picture
An isometric drawing of the Hauer King House by Future Systems

Future Systems’ early completed work mostly consisted of interiors and displays for shops, before they received a commission from Debra Hauer and Jeremy King. The couple wanted a family house close to central London, and after realizing they could build their own for a similar price to buying one, they approached Future Systems, who they knew personally and asked them to design a family home with high aesthetic value. The couple had found a site in Douglas Road, and they invited the architects to view it. Levete and Kaplicky liked the challenge of designing a house to fit in between a Georgian terrace and a Victorian pub, and they hired an assistant, Lindy Atkin, who had experience with working with glass from time at Nicholas Grimshaw Associates. The expected struggle with local planning authorities was not forthcoming, as they welcomed something new being built on the site, (despite plans already being approved for a historically-influenced house on the plot).
Picture
The garden side of the Hauer King House with the basement level dining room and kitchen
The shape of the plot, long and thin and running north-south, formed the design of the house. The house is rectangular in plan but not in form, with a long sloping glass rear facade which creates four floors of reducing length as it rises. The ground floor contains the entrance hall (which rises to the top of the house) and a living room, below that is a basement level with an au pair bedroom, utility room, kitchen and the dining room, overlooked by a balcony from the floor above. The top two floors of the house are home to the children's bedroom and on the top floor the master bedroom. The dining room opens up onto a very small, wedge-shaped garden which is surrounded by mature trees. ​
Picture
The angled kitchen island for the Hauer King House
The house is constructed of a steel frame between two side walls of stock brick with the body of the house largely formed of glass. Twenty two large panels of glass are arranged in landscape format from the sloping rear of the house, up over the top to meet the glass brick face fronting the street. This front face is clearly influenced by Maison de Verre (1932), the house in Paris designed by Pierre Charreau, Bernard Bivojet and Louis Dalbert with translucent glass block walls. The front door is reached from the street by a metal staircase which was designed to curve around an existing tree, which has now been removed. The sloping glass panels of the rear also bring to mind Norman Foster's Willis Faber & Dumas Building in Ipswich (1975) with its curved glass frontage, a building that Kaplicky worked on. The panels on the rear facade can be opened to allow air flow, as the house was not built with air conditioning. The engineering on the house was undertaken by Anthony Hunt Associates with services engineering overseen by Arup.
Picture
The first floor lounge in the Hauer King House with a balcony overlooking the kitchen/dining room.
Future Systems designed two other houses in the same period as the Hauer King House. In 1992 they designed a house in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire for engineer Andy Sedgwick who worked at Arup Associates. A single storey house in a normal suburban street, like the Hauer King House, the structure of the Berkhamsted house is formed of two flanking walls with a steel frame with large areas of glazing, especially out to the garden area. The year after the Hauer King house was completed, the partnership designed their most famous house, Malator, a spectacular home in Druidstone, Wales for MP, barrister and writer Bob Marshall-Andrews and his wife. Nicknamed the “Teletubby House”, Malator is lenticular-shaped building wedged into an earth mound. From the road all that can be seen is a grass mound with a small window in the middle. However the side that faces the sea has a panoramic view, fully glazed from floor to ceiling. 
Picture
The Lord's Media Centre (1999) by Future Systems. Image from RIBApix.
The same year that Malator was built, 1994, Future Systems also secured the commission that would bring them the attention of the world beyond architecture periodicals. The Lord’s Media Centre, completed in 1999,  hovers above a stand of the venerable cricket ground, like a visitor from outer space, its sleek body constructed in the Pendennis shipyard in Falmouth. The building won the Stirling Prize in 1999. Kaplicky and Levete had married in 1991, and after they separated and divorced in 2006, the practice was split into separate practices. Kaplicky died in 2009 aged 71. Levete continues to practice, and has won many awards. ​
References
Martin Pawley- Future Systems: The Story of Tomorrow

Martin Pawley- Hauer-  House, London 1995
Nicholas Pevsner and Bridget Cherry- London 4: North
Neil Jackson- The Modern Steel House

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Segal in Suburbia

17/10/2024

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Picture
A Segal Self Build House on Elstree Hill, Bromley. Image frm RIBApix.
Our new Modernism Beyond Metroland guidebook features many architects, working in a variety of styles and materials. Walter Segal’s work is unique among them for its focus on self building and use of timber. The borough of Lewisham was the first place to embrace his ideas, which have subsequently spread around the suburbs and beyond. 
Picture
A cross section of Segal's self built annexe at Highgate
After a number of years designing small projects such as houses, flats and offices, largely in brick, Segal began to explore timber construction with a temporary annexe whilst his house in Highgate was being rebuilt, devising a self build system using widely available and low cost materials, in standard units. He saw how anybody could use the system to construct their own homes, and via the anarchist writer and architect Colin Ward, found a sympathetic reception at Lewisham Borough Council. They eventually allowed him some land to start building in Forest Hill, constructing 7 homes in what would be named Segal Close.
Other houses were built in Ormanton Road and Longton Avenue, Sydenham and Elstree Hill, Ravensbourne, all using the Segal method and producing houses built with timber frames and infill panels. Another plot of land was given over for self building in Honor Oak Park, where 13 two-storey timber houses were completed in 1986, and the street named Walter’s Way. 
Picture
One of the houses built at Segal Close. Image from RIBApix.
The borough’s own architects department also took inspiration from Segal's ideas, with the scheme at Brockley Park, next to Segal Close, designed by Geoffrey Wigfall, using mono pitched homes built in brick and finished with timber cladding and grass roofs. Some of the houses feature “pods” at the front, to be used for extra living or storage space, and the estate is grouped around a large green space. ​
Picture
A terrace of houses at Brockley Park, designed by Lewisham Borough Architects Department.
Segal passed away in 1985 but his ideas persisted with self build projects appearing all around the capital's suburbs, with collaborator Jon Broome continuing the philosophy with his own practice Architype. Self-built projects can be found at Headway Gardens in Walthamstow, Parish Gardens in Greenwich, Eridge Green Close in Bromley and opposite Segal Close in Brockley Park, as well as at many other sites around the suburbs. ​
Walter Segal’s self-build houses will have an extended section in our Modernism Beyond Metroland guidebook, now at 94% of its crowdfunding total. Get your copy HERE 
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The White Elephant: The Rayners Lane Grosvenor Cinema

9/10/2024

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Picture
The Rayners Lane Grosvenor Cinema with its original name sign. Image from Dusahenka on Flickr.
The Rayners Lane Grosvenor Cinema opened on 12th October 1936, with a showing of ‘The Country Doctor’ starring Jean Hersholt. The cinema was part of the small Hammond Dawes circuit, and was partially paid for by the housing developers T.F. Nash, who had built Harrow Garden Village at Rayners Lane from 1929 and wanted suitable attractions to entice new suburbanites to the development. The new cinema was designed by architect Frank Ernest Bromige, who had previously designed a number of cinemas, including the streamlined Dominion Southall (1936, now demolished) and the Dominion in Harrow, with its curving facade hidden until its recent restoration. ​
Picture
The now-demolished Dominion Cinema in Southall by FE Bromige. Image from Dusashenka on Flickr.
For the cinema at Rayners Lane, Bromige produced one of his, and suburban cinemas, most memorable designs. The cinema is built as part of a typical interwar parade, opposite Rayners Lane Underground Station, which was rebuilt in 1938 by R.H. Uren and Charles Holden. The frontage has a three part facade made up of two tall large glass convex sections which flank a large central concave window above the entrance. In front of this concave window is a curved vertical concrete feature, often said to resemble an elephant's trunk. Bromige actually referred to this feature as a stylised question mark, but the association with an elephant's trunk has stuck. The feature was highlighted with neon lighting, and in front of it was a revolving vertical name sign, with GROSVENOR spelt out in chunky letters.
Picture
The auditorium of the Rayners Lane Grovesnor with its dynamic ceiling lighting.
Inside the streamlined aesthetic continued, with the foyers curving into one another and decorated with circular mirrors, uplighters, carpets with geometric patterns, and tubular steel furniture and railings.The centerpiece of the ground floor was the cafe area with its sunken floor and artfully arranged oval lighting troughs. The auditorium itself could seat over 1200 patrons, and was decorated with dynamic lighting that led the viewer's eye towards the screen. 
Picture
A metal railing on a staircase inside the Rayners Lane Grovesnor. Image from Dusashenka on Flickr.
The cinema joined the Odeon chain in 1937, and remained with them until 1950 when it joined Gaumont. After again becoming part of Odeon in 1961, it became the independant Ace cinema in 1981, finally closing on 16th October 1986. After that it was converted into a pub and nightclub with various alterations made to the interior including a helicopter and light aircraft attached to the auditorium ceiling. After a period where the building changed hands rapidly it was finally bought by a chapter of the Zoroastrian religion. They made great efforts to change the building back to somewhat of its original form, with it having been listed in 1981 and upgraded to Grade II* in 1984. The Zoroastrian’s are rightly proud of the building and open it up for tours on Heritage weekends and for the Open House London festival.
The Rayners Lane Grosvenor featured in A Guide to Modernism in Metro-Land, our guidebook from 2020. The follow up volume, Modernism Beyond Metro-Land, featuring the best art deco and modernist buildings of the eastern and southern suburbs is crowdfunding now, and has reached 94%. Help us get the guide published and get your copy HERE.
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  • About
  • Metro-Land and Modernism
  • The Buildings
    • North London
    • West London
    • East London
    • South London
    • Counties
  • The Architects
  • Shop
    • The Guide
    • Mini Guides
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    • Modernism Beyond Metroland
  • Blog
  • References & Links