Kensal House

Last updated

Kensal House
Kensal House, Ladbroke Grove.jpg
Kensal House in 2016
Kensal House
General information
Type Housing association flats
Architectural style Modernist
Location Ladbroke Grove, London, England
Address1-68, Ladbroke Grove W10
Coordinates 51°31′31″N0°12′54″W / 51.5253°N 0.2151°W / 51.5253; -0.2151
Completed1937 (1937)
Client Gas Light and Coke Company
Design and construction
Architect(s) Maxwell Fry
Awards and prizes Royal Gold Medal (1963)
Listed Building – Grade II*
Official nameKensal House
Designated19 March 1981 (1981-03-19)
Reference no. 1225244

Kensal House is a housing estate of two curved blocks of 68 housing association flats at the northern end of Ladbroke Grove, Kensal Green, completed in 1937 and designed by the architect Maxwell Fry. It was the first modernist block in the UK designed to be occupied by the working class and on completion in 1937, was widely thought to be a prototype for modern living.

Contents

Design

It was commissioned and financed by the Gas Light and Coke Company (GLCC) to provide 68 "working-class flats", housing 380 people. [1] [2] It was the first modernist block in the UK designed for this purpose. [1] The project included a community centre, communal laundry, canteen and a nursery school. [3] The development was unusual in that there was no electricity provided, rather gas fires, coke fires, gas cookers, gas water heaters, and gas-powered irons. [4]

The project was designed by Maxwell Fry, [4] but was developed by a committee of five architects and the social reformer Elizabeth Denby, who had worked with Fry at the Peckham Pioneer Health Centre. [4] The GLCC wanted to show that a modern building could be run cheaply and powered safely by gas. [1] Fry wanted to create what he called an urban village, and he and Denby wanted to offer working people "healthier, happier, safer, and more fulfilling lives". [1] According to the Open University, "Kensal House marks the point in the story of British Modernist architecture when the social/political ideals of the early modernists come to the fore." [1] On completion in 1937 it was widely thought to be a prototype for modern living. [1]

Depictions

Kensal House on a 1942 Abram Games poster for the Army Bureau of Current Affairs Your Britain Fight For It Now poster L0023780.jpg
Kensal House on a 1942 Abram Games poster for the Army Bureau of Current Affairs

In 1937, the estate was the subject of an 11-minute documentary, Welcome to Kensal House, produced by the British Commercial Gas Association. [2] [5] In 1940, Kensal House provided the cover image for James Maude Richards's An Introduction to Modern Architecture, published by Penguin Books. [5]

In 1942, Kensal House was featured prominently on a lithograph poster "Your Britain. Fight for It Now", designed by Abram Games, his second poster for the Army Bureau of Current Affairs. [3] The poster contrasts derelict slum housing with the clean, white and modern aesthetic of Kensal House. [3] Further wording on the poster reads: "Clean, airy and well planned dwellings make a great contribution to the Rehousing movement. This is a fine example of a block of workers' flats built in London in 1936." [6]

In 1984, a 55-minute documentary, Twelve Views of Kensal House, was filmed on the property by Peter Wyeth. [7] The film called attention to tenants who occupied the building since 1936. It featured Maxwell Fry, Stephen Bayley and Michael C. Burgess. [8]

Recognition

Kensal House was a RIBA Royal Gold Medal winner in 1963. [4] It is Grade II* listed with Historic England, [9] as is the associated Kensal House Day Nursery. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernő Goldfinger</span> Hungarian-born architect and designer of furniture

Ernő Goldfinger was a Hungarian-born British architect and designer of furniture. He moved to the United Kingdom in the 1930s, and became a key member of the Modernist architectural movement. He is most prominently remembered for designing residential tower blocks, some of which are now listed buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denys Lasdun</span> English architect

Sir Denys Louis Lasdun, CH, CBE, RA was an eminent English architect, the son of Nathan Lasdun (1879–1920) and Julie. Probably his best known work is the Royal National Theatre, on London's South Bank of the Thames, which is a Grade II* listed building and one of the most notable examples of Brutalist design in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trellick Tower</span> Tower block in the Brutalist style in Kensal Town, London

Trellick Tower is a Grade II* listed tower block on the Cheltenham Estate in Kensal Town, London. Opened in 1972, it was commissioned by the Greater London Council and designed in the Brutalist style by architect Ernő Goldfinger. The tower was planned to replace outdated social accommodation, and designed as an improvement on Goldfinger's earlier Balfron Tower in East London. It was the last major project he worked on, and featured various space-saving designs, along with a separate access tower containing a plant room.

The year 1937 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keeling House</span> Residential maisonettes in London, England

Keeling House is a 16-storey block of flats located on Claredale Street in Bethnal Green, London, England. It was designed by Denys Lasdun and completed in 1957 as a cluster of four blocks of maisonettes arranged around a central service tower. A radical renovation in 2001 added a penthouse storey and concierge service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2 Willow Road</span> A part of a terrace of three houses in Hampstead

2 Willow Road is part of a terrace of three houses in Hampstead, London designed by architect Ernő Goldfinger and completed in 1939. It has been managed by the National Trust since 1995 and is open to the public. It was one of the first Modernist buildings acquired by the Trust, giving rise to some controversy. Goldfinger lived there with his wife Ursula and their children until his death in 1987.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wells Coates</span> Canadian architect (1895–1958)

Wells Wintemute Coates was an architect, designer and writer. He was, for most of his life, an expatriate Canadian who is best known for his work in England, the most notable of which is the Modernist block of flats known as the Isokon building in Hampstead, London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berthold Lubetkin</span> Georgian-British architect

Berthold Romanovich Lubetkin was a Georgian-British architect who pioneered modernist design in Britain in the 1930s. His work includes the Highpoint housing complex, the Penguin Pool at London Zoo, Finsbury Health Centre and Spa Green Estate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maxwell Fry</span> English architect, writer and painter (1899–1987)

Edwin Maxwell Fry, CBE, RA, FRIBA, FRTPI was an English modernist architect, writer and painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Span Developments</span> British property development company

Span Developments Limited was a British property development company formed in the late 1950s by Geoffrey Townsend working in long and close partnership with Eric Lyons as consultant architect. During its most successful period in the 1960s, Span built over 2,000 homes in London, Surrey, Kent and East Sussex – mainly two- and three-bedroom single-family homes and apartment buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golden Lane Estate</span> 1950s council housing complex in London

The Golden Lane Estate is a 1950s council housing complex in the City of London. It was built on the northern edge of the City, on a site devastated by bombing during the Second World War. Since 1997, the estate has been protected as a group of listed buildings of special architectural interest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Lyons</span> British designer and architect

Eric Alfred Lyons CBE (1912–1980) was a British designer and architect. He achieved critical recognition in his development of family and technology-embracing housing communities in England in the latter part of the 20th century. His partnership in Span Developments led to the building of over 73 estates, some of which have achieved Conservation area status in recognition of the close communities created with substantial garden areas, glass and light, façade angles used for privacy and decoration and separate garages as a practical Bauhaus for car-based culture and high point of Modern Architecture widely described a "successful, experimental modernism".

Charles Hudson Kearley, was an English property developer and art collector.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gas Light and Coke Company</span> Defunct energy supplier

The Gas Light and Coke Company, was a company that made and supplied coal gas and coke. The headquarters of the company were located on Horseferry Road in Westminster, London. It is identified as the original company from which British Gas plc is descended.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Drew</span> British architect and town planner (1911–1996)

Dame Jane Drew, was an English modernist architect and town planner. She qualified at the Architectural Association School in London, and prior to World War II became one of the leading exponents of the Modern Movement in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spa Green Estate</span> Housing estate in Clerkenwell, London

Spa Green Estate between Rosebery Avenue and St John St in Clerkenwell, London EC1, England, is the most complete post-war realisation of a 1930s radical plan for social regeneration through Modernist architecture. Conceived as public housing, it is now a mixed community of private owners and council tenants, run by a resident-elected management organization. In 1998 this work by the architect Berthold Lubetkin received a Grade II* listing for its architectural significance, and the major 2008 restoration brought back the original colour scheme, which recalls Lubetkin's contacts with Russian Constructivism.

Elizabeth Denby was an English social housing expert and consultant.

Acheson Best Overend was an Australian architect. He is best known for the Cairo Flats in Fitzroy, built 1935—1936, a daringly Modernist design for Melbourne in the 1930s.

Arthur Norman Baldwinson (1908–1969) was one of Australia's first generation of prominent modernist architects to experience the European modernist movement first hand. His modernist contemporaries include Roy Grounds and Frederick Romberg in Victoria, as well as Sydney Ancher and Walter Bunning in New South Wales; their respective Australian architectural careers in modernism began in the late 1930s. Baldwinson's active professional career as an active practising architect was relatively short (1938–1960).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bromley-by-Bow gasholders</span>

The Bromley-by-Bow gasholders are a group of seven cast iron Victorian gasholders in Twelvetrees Crescent, West Ham and named after nearby Bromley in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Kensal House". Open University. 26 November 2001. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
  2. 1 2 "Welcome to Kensal House". BFI. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "'Your Britain. Fight For it Now', 1942". National Army Museum. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Priest, Isabelle (24 October 2018). "Watershed in housing history: Edwin Maxwell Fry". RIBA Journal. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  5. 1 2 Iain Boyd Whyte (19 December 2006). Man-Made Future: Planning, Education and Design in Mid-20th Century Britain. Routledge. pp. 171–172. ISBN   978-1-134-32519-1.
  6. "A modern block of flats contrasted with a row of unhealthy terrace houses. Colour lithograph after A. Games, 1942". Wellcome library. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
  7. Harrod, Tanya (17 June 1990). "Utopia betrayed and benighted". The Independent . p. 57. Retrieved 30 August 2023 via Newspapers.com.
  8. Foxon, Steven (18 August 2022). "12 Views of Kensal House". BFI Southbank Programme Notes. Retrieved 1 September 2023.
  9. "KENSAL HOUSE, Kensington and Chelsea – 1225244 | Historic England". historicengland.org.uk.
  10. "KENSAL HOUSE DAY NURSERY, Kensington and Chelsea – 1266444 | Historic England". historicengland.org.uk.