Wells Coates (1895-1958)
Wells Coates was born in Tokyo, Japan on 17th December 1895, to Canadain parents who were Methodist missionaries in Japan. His mother, Sarah, had trained under architect Louis Sullivan in Chicago, and planned out missionary schools in Japan. He moved around the Far East and Canada, and served in World War I, coming to Britain in 1922. After studying engineering, Coates trained to be a journalist at the Daily Express, before moving into design work, starting as an interior designer. Some of his early work includes designing shops and factory premises for Cresta Silks, a flat for actor Charles Laughton and studios for the BBC in London and Newcastle.
Of course, the building Coates is now most famous for is the Isokon flats in Belsize Park. The building was the brainchild of Jack and Molly Pritchard, who founded the Isokon firm in 1929 to bring modernist design to Britain. The Pritchards had originally wanted a house for themselves on the site. The brief then changed to two houses, then to two houses and a nursery school before settling on an apartment block designed to provide inexpensive flats for young professionals. The finished building, which opened in 1934, provided 22 flats for single people, named “minimum” apartments, as well as larger apartments, a caretaker's flat and the penthouse apartment occupied by the Pritchards. The building would play host to a wealth of famous names; Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, Arthur Korn, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and later on novelist Agatha Christie would all be residents.
Coates would also design apartment blocks at 10 Palace Gate, Kensington (1939), where he would use a pioneering 3-2 layout system, and at Embassy Court in Brighton (1935). Coates also partnered up with David Pleydell-Bouverie to produce the Sunpan house, designed to be a mass built, flexibly-planned detached house. The houses were square in plan, with a curved side, and were to be angled so as to receive light more equally inside. Around 15 were built altogether, with 10 examples surviving. Coates would also be influential on two of the best 1930s modernist houses built in Britain, Homewood in Esher (1938) and 32 Newton Road, Paddington (1938). They were designed by Patrick Gwynne and Denys Lasdun, respectively, both young architects in his firm at the time.
Away from architecture, Coates produced many other designs, such as the Ecko radio cabinet, various pieces of furniture and even a prototype catamaran sailing boat, called the Wingsail. After serving in the RAF during World War II, Coates moved back to Canada in the 1950s, teaching alongside Walter Gropius at Harvard and doing planning work. Coates died of a heart attack in June 1958.
Featured Buildings: Isokon Flats, Palace Gate, Sunspan, Wentworth Close
See Also: Isokon Flats, Speculative Suburban Houses,
Of course, the building Coates is now most famous for is the Isokon flats in Belsize Park. The building was the brainchild of Jack and Molly Pritchard, who founded the Isokon firm in 1929 to bring modernist design to Britain. The Pritchards had originally wanted a house for themselves on the site. The brief then changed to two houses, then to two houses and a nursery school before settling on an apartment block designed to provide inexpensive flats for young professionals. The finished building, which opened in 1934, provided 22 flats for single people, named “minimum” apartments, as well as larger apartments, a caretaker's flat and the penthouse apartment occupied by the Pritchards. The building would play host to a wealth of famous names; Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, Arthur Korn, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and later on novelist Agatha Christie would all be residents.
Coates would also design apartment blocks at 10 Palace Gate, Kensington (1939), where he would use a pioneering 3-2 layout system, and at Embassy Court in Brighton (1935). Coates also partnered up with David Pleydell-Bouverie to produce the Sunpan house, designed to be a mass built, flexibly-planned detached house. The houses were square in plan, with a curved side, and were to be angled so as to receive light more equally inside. Around 15 were built altogether, with 10 examples surviving. Coates would also be influential on two of the best 1930s modernist houses built in Britain, Homewood in Esher (1938) and 32 Newton Road, Paddington (1938). They were designed by Patrick Gwynne and Denys Lasdun, respectively, both young architects in his firm at the time.
Away from architecture, Coates produced many other designs, such as the Ecko radio cabinet, various pieces of furniture and even a prototype catamaran sailing boat, called the Wingsail. After serving in the RAF during World War II, Coates moved back to Canada in the 1950s, teaching alongside Walter Gropius at Harvard and doing planning work. Coates died of a heart attack in June 1958.
Featured Buildings: Isokon Flats, Palace Gate, Sunspan, Wentworth Close
See Also: Isokon Flats, Speculative Suburban Houses,