Category: Architectural Tours
Western Garden Cities, Amsterdam
Having visited the Rietveld Schröder and Van Ravestyn houses in Utrecht, we moved on to Amsterdam.
A short tram ride west from the centre of the city was Westelijke Tuinsteden (the Western Garden Cities), an ambitious post-war housing development that was as much an open-air museum as it was a living neighbourhood – I’d never seen anything quite like it.
Planned in 1935 by urbanist Cornelis van Eesteren under the General Extension Plan, the Garden Cities were built to answer Amsterdam’s chronic housing shortage and shaped around the principles of light, air and space, conveying the optimism of a post-war generation that believed good housing could transform not only a city, but the people who lived within it.
Laid out on a generous scale with broad avenues, landscaped courtyards and housing blocks carefully positioned to catch the sun, the district became home to around 100,000 residents in the 1950s and 60s. A river ran through the suburb, threading water and greenery through the urban space.
The architecture was varied and experimental while still maintaining a cohesive style overall. Slab blocks and duplex houses stood beside bold public buildings including a 1950s H-shaped school and a striking brutalist yellow-trimmed building.
A tour conducted entirely in Dutch (I had no idea what was going on at the time) took us around the neighbourhood, which looked well cared for with well maintained gardens and all facades intact.
A restored flat maintained by the Van Eesteren Museum apartment on Freek Oxstraat showed how the principles of the Garden Cities extended to interior domestic spaces.
The apartment, a modest 40-square-metre duplex, was arranged on two levels, with the entrance on the upper floor.
This opened onto a living room with wide window, a compact but modern kitchen (for the time) and a separate dining room – a distinction unusual in Dutch working-class housing at the time, where families had often eaten and lived in the same cramped space.
A staircase led down to the apartment’s more private quarters: a handful of bedrooms and a bathroom, modest in size but laid out with efficiency.
The design and decor of the apartment reflected the principles of Stichting Goed Wonen (the Association for Good Living), a foundation created after the Second World War by designers, architects and shopkeepers determined to teach people how to live well in their new homes.
Replacing the dark, heavy interiors of pre-war slum housing consisting of rooms crammed with carved wardrobes, velvet curtains and knick-knacks, the Stichting Goed Wonen aesthetic involved easy to clean bare lino floors, simple furniture (many designed by Premsela) lightweight enough to fold and move, built-in cupboards to keep clutter hidden and large windows to let daylight in.
Every element was chosen to be functional, hygienic and modern and it was believed that this would nurture healthier, more forward-looking citizens. By the 1960s, these ideals had become fashionable, influencing not only housing but wider lifestyle and culture. The Goed Wonen philosophy even helped inspire the DNA of IKEA, with its emphasis on affordable, adaptable furnishings for the “common man.”
Sybold van Ravesteyn House, Utrecht
Tucked into a small triangular plot a few minutes down the down from the Rietveld Schröder House was the intriguing Sybold van Ravesteyn house. Built out of sand-coloured railway bricks between 1932 and 1934 by Sybold van Ravestyn (an eccentric architect best known for designing train stations for the Dutch Railways), the house challenged architectural conventions of the time.
The plot – little more than a wedge-shaped leftover at the bend of a street – was just about big enough to fit the house, which consisted of a rectangular two-storey building with a semicircular volume and roof terrace on the first floor. A narrow garage – almost comically tight – was appended to the left side of the property, designed to form part of the overall silhouette of the house.
Inside, Van Ravesteyn maximised use of the small footprint by using narrow, steep stairs and installing curved walls to soften corners and guide movement around the house.
The central part of the house was a large open plan living space with no dividing walls between the study, sitting room and dining room – an unusual concept at the time and one of the first examples of modern open plan living in the Netherlands.
This large open-plan space featured curved lines in the floor, a suspended ceiling of frosted glass in a steel frame and built-in furniture, which served to subtly zone the space into sitting, dining and working areas.
Though the house was practical in many ways (unusually for domestic buildings at the time, it had both central heating and plumbing throughout the house and a kitchen equipped with modern domestic appliances), Van Ravestyn resisted the cold minimalism often associated with early modernism, filling it with porcelain figurines, neo-Baroque decorative lines carved into the ceilings and built-in shelves that drew the eye across the room, their lines continuing into baseboards and shutter grooves.
Upstairs were three bedrooms and a bathroom. Van Ravestyn decided against installing traditional box beds in the bedrooms (still common in Dutch homes of the era) in favour of more modern free-standing beds flanked by built-in closets. The master bedroom featured a circular window with a bespoke shutter and an enormous terrace – larger than the bedroom itself.
Each of the son’s bedroom and the guest room (where the family’s nanny stayed during her pregnancy, having been impregnated by Van Ravestyn himself – though this could have been a mistranslation!) each had their own basins and nightlights.
Van Ravesteyn lived in the house until his nineties after which it was acquired and renovated by the Hendrick de Keyser Association. It has since served as a house museum and can be booked for overnight stays – something which gave the house a distinctly “lived in” feel.
Rietveld Schröder House, Utrecht
Visiting the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht was like stepping into a physical representation of a Mondrian painting.
Built in 1924 by the innovative architect Gerrit Rietveld (also famous for his Mondrian coded Red and Blue chair), the house was designed to be as much an artistic statement as a house in response to a brief from Truus Schröder-Schräder, a wealthy widowed mother of three with a penchant for avantgarde design.
Rietveld, influenced by the De Stijl movement, aimed to create a space defined by flexibility, openness, and clarity. Though it was constructed during the same period as the traditional brick townhouses that surrounded it, it broke entirely from convention and is perhaps best known for its distinctive layout consisting of an adjustable open plan space that could be divided into separate rooms via a system of sliding panels.
Exterior
Despite being brick-built, the house looked as if it was made from concrete with its clean, white plaster surfaces and intersecting planes giving it a strikingly modern appearance even today. The building stood in sharp contrast to the neighbouring houses (and the terrace that it bookended) due to its abstract, cubic form and bold accents in red, black, and yellow.
A thin red line across the façade of the house highlighted where to deliver parcels, blending functional design with visual clarity, a typical Rietveld detail. Also noticeable were structural beams and posts that ran from outside the house to inside, seamlessly connecting the interior to the exterior and a speaking tube that allowed Truus Schröder-Schräder to communicate with visitors at the front door from the first floor without having to go downstairs.
Ground Floor
The ground floor followed a traditional layout, divided into rooms for practical functions like cooking, working, and storage. The hallway was compact with a short flight of white steps leading upward beside a built-in bench. A wall unit accommodated storage for four occupants, and the coat rack was designed with both high and low sections, catering to both adults and children.
The kitchen was equipped with features far ahead of its time: one of the first dishwashers, wall cabinets with sliding glass doors, a drop-down shelf by the window for deliveries and detachable shutters on the windows. The thick exposed pipes on the wall gave the room a modern, slightly industrial feel.
The kitchen flowed through into the maid’s room, painted a cheerful sunny yellow to counteract the distinct lack of light. Unusually for the time, this room was wired for electricity and had its own sink and direct access to the garden, reflecting the importance placed by Rietveld and Truus Schröder-Schräder on maintaining independence and dignity for domestic workers. Later, this small space was rented to students.
Also on the ground floor was a workspace and a front room featuring a distinctive ceiling lamp, the design of which drew the eye upward, helping visitors perceive the three-dimensional volume of the room.
First Floor
The first floor contained the most distinctive features of the house. Designed as a space for living during the day and sleeping at night, it was officially listed as an attic to sidestep local building regulations.
This was necessary because the whole of the upper floor was an open plan space with no fixed walls that could be divided into separate rooms using sliding and revolving panels, or left open as a single large area. A central living room, originally boasting panoramic views (now somewhat obscured), featured built-in storage (including a striking yellow cupboard in the corner resembling a modernist sculpture), a skylight and the same three dimensional ceiling lamp as the one on the ground floor.
The daughter’s bedroom was designed to be multi-functional: a sitting room by day, and a bedroom for two by night. The son’s room was more experimental with a floor made from a patchwork of different colours and materials and detachable wall panels in lieu of curtains for privacy. An early version of a spotlight illuminated the room, showing Rietveld’s interest in modern lighting techniques.
The main bedroom, used by Schröder herself, was surprisingly the smallest in the house. Rietveld, however, used the space very efficiently, incorporating a built-in washbasin, a fold-out cupboard and a narrow red shelf just wide enough to hold a watch or small personal items.
The bathroom was tucked between the mother’s and daughters’ rooms and featured a granite hip bath and a sliding vent hatch for fresh air—compact, yet luxurious for the time. The separate toilet was tucked away behind a black painted door.
Though the family was wealthy, the house was decidedly modest in size, built on a tight urban plot. The constraints caused by the small plot were part of the creative challenge for Rietveld, who embraced the opportunity to build something innovative without the luxury of unlimited space and scale.
Truus Schröder-Schräder lived in the house until her death in 1985. The house was then restored by Bertus Mulder and now is a museum open for visits, run by the Centraal Museum. It has been a listed monument since 1976 and UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000. An exhibition on the house and Rietveld’s other designs form part of the permanent collection at the Centraal Musuem in central Utrecht.
Ten years of Modernist Pilgrimage
Although my posting frequency has dipped in recent times, I have somehow managed to keep this blog going for ten years.
Thank you to anyone who has subscribed to the blog or read any of my content about the properties I’ve lived in/renovated, things I’ve bought and places I’ve visited over this period.
There are still a lot of places in the UK and abroad that I plan to visit, photograph and write about so the blog will probably still be around in another ten years, most likely looking just as basic and dated as it does now…!
Highlights from ten years of Modernist Pilgrimage (click on the photos to be taken to the full posts):
Faro 20th Century Society Tour
I attended an excellent C20 Society tour of Faro earlier this year, which provided me with some much needed material for this neglected blog.
The tour, led by Richard Walker (whose similarly excellent tour of the less sunny Elephant and Castle I attended in 2018), focused on the often overlooked modernist architecture that characterises the capital of Portugal’s Algarve region.
During the mid-20th century, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, many European countries experienced a wave of modernisation and urban development. Portugal was no exception and Modernist architecture, characterised by its functional design, use of new materials and minimalist aesthetic, became popular in Faro during this time.
Largely shaped by the prolific architect Manuel Gomes da Costa, Faro’s architectural landscape came to consist of a blend of European Le Corbusier-inspired design, Brazilian tropical modernism and a bit of Palm Springs glamour, adapted for the Algarve’s sunny, coastal climate.
Although a little careworn in places, it made for a very photogenic and interesting city.
Hotel Aeromar
The tour began at the Hotel Aeromar, built by Da Costa in the 1970s. While Da Costa primarily focused on private residences, he took on this hotel project only to disown the design when it was deemed necessary to replace his intended flat roof with a pitched roof due to the coastal location (the wind and water would not have been kind to the original design).
The hotel bore signs of a number of his design trademarks, especially the brise soleil-style windows which cut out sunlight but allowed it to filter through.
The facilities were basic and the decor on the dated side but it still managed to be quite charming. Apparently it once provided the backdrop for a Hermes fashion shoot – I can only imagine they were going for a kitschy vibe – but I haven’t been able to track down the photos.
Beginning the Tour
The first leg of the tour involved walking around the art deco district (consisting of 1930s low rise, box shaped buildings with a nod to classicism), and modernist districts (dominated by buildings designed by Da Costa and architects that he influenced) of Faro.
Despite Faro’s rather erratic listing system, most of the modernist buildings built in the city between the 1930s-1970s were still standing. Faro, we were told, is not a city obsessed with redevelopment and is slowly waking up to its modernist past and the potential to use it for tourism.
Faro’s buildings featured a lot of pattern and texture with an emphasis on graphic statement tiles and paving. The closely packed buildings, squeezed onto small plots, each had visual interest of some kind.
We were told that Portuguese architects like to build statement architecture but with a degree of restraint, pulling back from overt showiness. A few eye catching exceptions aside (including a rather gaudy pop art inspired yellow house), I found this to be true – this was modernism through a Portuguese lens.
The Modernist Aparthotel
The first of the interior stops on the tour was The Modernist, a once rundown brutalist building turned aparthotel following renovation works by the Portuguese architecture studio PAr.
The building was originally built in 1977 by a family who lived on the top floors and rented the rest to commercial tenants until 1986. The building, which was for a long time regarded as the ugliest in Faro, then lay abandoned until 2016.
We were told that PAr adopted a very purist approach to the three year renovation project, breathing new life into the building whilst respecting its DNA. The most significant structural change involved adding a flat rooftop (previously a traditional pitched roof), which served as a terrace offering 360-degree views of the city, including multiple Da Costa designs and Faro’s oldest department store. The original plan was to install a pool on the newly flattened roof but this was scuppered by a construction issue.
Inside, the hotel apartments were of varying size but were all largely identical – open plan studio spaces incorporating a living area (overlooking the street), kitchen island, sleeping area (overlooking the internal courtyard), small bathroom and balcony. The style was very much minimalist with simple, functional furniture built into the walls (including an Alvar Aalto-inspired curved window ledge) and a largely monochromatic colour scheme consisting of green, red and gold.
The materials used throughout (mostly locally sourced wood and stone) were natural and tactile. It was all very pleasant and tranquil but the lack of various modcons (including a tv – a conscious decision by the owners) meant that I’d probably struggle staying there…!
Casa Gago
The next building that we saw the inside of was the rather spectacular Casa Gogo.
Casa Gago was commissioned by Alfredo Gago Rosa, a wealthy emigrant from Venezuela, who wanted a special house in the heart of Faro for his family. Despite being relatively inexperienced, a 34 year old Da Costa was chosen to lead this rather ambitious project, which resulted in one of the most iconic modernist buildings in Faro.
Da Costa’s goal was to create something new with the house, akin to something seen more commonly in the US. Using Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies Van der Rohe as inspiration, the resulting building was a mix of American and tropical featuring pop art tiles, organic shapes and Aztec and Mayan motifs.
At some stage, the house was split into three levels and sold off. The second floor was used for many years as a hairdressers (there was still evidence of some of the fittings that had been left behind) before it was bought as a residential apartment by the current owner.
Thankfully, this appeared to be someone who wants to undertake a full scale renovation project to restore the apartment to its former glory – there would be nothing stopping someone from ripping out the entirety of the interior as only the exterior of Casa Gago is listed.
The owner certainly has a lot to work with, given that the apartment had pretty much all of its original 1950s features intact even if some of these features were in need of repair.
The apartment featured a number of Da Costa hallmarks – full-height doors, Z-shaped stairs a large porch, room dividing built-in furniture, glass walls and enormous interior pivot doors.
The layout was split into public (living, dining and reception rooms) and private (four bedrooms) sections with sunbreaking breeze block cobogó all down the west side.
Other buildings in Faro
The tour moved on to other buildings in the city including:
⁃ A 1966 design on a triangular plot built for a South American bank – this was considered to be a radical design at the time.
⁃ Da Costa’s own house from the mid 1960s – this was not what I expected. Inspired by Mies Van Der Rohe and a Japanese garden, it was low level and quite modest in comparison to the rest of his designs that dominated the city. The house was connected to a studio space in which Da Costa worked largely alone.
⁃ A lovely row of Da Costa villas, one of which was owned by the new owner of Casa Gago.
Another, currently used as a hotel, had been significantly remodelled to slightly underwhelming effect – the house had lost its carefully calibrated proportions and looked a bit “heavy” as a result.
⁃ Various social housing schemes, which looked well designed and quite attractive.
⁃ An intersection of buildings from the late 1970s, including one of Da Costa’s last works from the late 1980s (he stopped working shortly after but lived until 2016).
As Da Costa was never one to follow trends, this building didn’t look very 1980s at all apart from some slightly fussy looking classical columns.
Olhão
The second day of the tour took us to nearby Olhão, a cubist-looking town a short train ride away from Faro.
The courthouse and cubist buildings in Olhão reflected a different architectural language to Faro with flat roofs and grid-patterned streets influenced by Moorish design.
The old part of town contained buildings from the 1920s to 1930s covered in now-familiar patterned tiles across six streets.
The modernist part of town looked a lot like Faro except without an abundance of Da Costa designs – there was only one Da Costa house in the whole of the town.
Praia de Faro
The tour concluded with a walk along the Faro’s coastal line to take in the seafront architecture, mostly post-1959 as this was when the bridge providing vehicular access to this stretch of land was built.
The buildings ranged from basic beach huts to a sophisticated Da Costa design, heavily influenced by Le Corbusier (note the hole in the roof to accommodate the tree).
Other notable designs included:
⁃ A very charming single storey orange coloured house (architect unknown).
⁃ A heavily cantilevered blue beach house from the late 1970s built by a partner of Da Costa.
⁃ A very photogenic Air Bnb house which has featured in every news story about modernist architecture in Faro.
Barbican Estate and Golden Lane Estate Tour
I thought that I was fairly familiar with both the Barbican Estate and Golden Lane Estate (having, at various points, fantasised about living in both places) but a two-part architectural tour that I attended earlier in the year provided new (at least for me) insights into both.
Designed by famed architects Chamberlain Powell and Bon, the Golden Lane Estate came first with construction starting in 1952 and completing in 1962. The Barbican followed immediately after with construction starting in 1963 and completing in phases between 1969 and 1976.
The Barbican Estate was conceived with the ambitious goal of seamlessly integrating the war-damaged site into the larger fabric of the city. It is, however, widely accepted today that it fell short of this objective, creating a desirable residential enclave rather than a vibrant and inclusive part of the city.
Looking into the estate from the main entrance (a deliberately inconspicuous ramp not visible from the tube station or even the street), it was pointed out that the estate is full of structures and multi-levelled walkways that you can see but cannot get to without an intimate knowledge of the estate’s layout and a master key to get you through its system of locked gates.
In contrast to the almost impenetrable Barbican Estate, the Golden Lane Estate was designed with openness in mind, with multiple street-level entrances and ways into the estate resulting in most areas being accessible to the public including the communal lawns (save for one private garden) and landscaping. Even the shops built into the edges of the estate were designed to be quasi thoroughfares with entrances at either end and therefore accessible from the street and within the estate (though many have shut off the estate-side entrance as it is reportedly difficult to run a shop in this way).
Density and size also set the two estates apart. The Barbican Estate, despite being six times larger than the Golden Lane Estate (40 acres vs 7 acres) accommodates less than three times the number of people (100 people per acre vs 200 people per acre). While this affords Barbican residents more generously proportioned homes and space on the estate, we were told that there is much more of a sense of community and more opportunities for social interaction on the Golden Lane Estate. This can be attributed to there being less space, forcing people to interact in the smaller lifts and communal areas, but also because Barbican residents are reportedly more inclined to keep to themselves.
Despite the fact that the Barbican Estate is technically a council estate, owned by the Corporation of London, it was primarily designed with affluent residents in mind as the Corporation of London wanted to attract a specific demographic to the City of London, requiring potential residents to prove earnings of 5.5 times the rent of the flats.
Due to the introduction of the right to buy scheme in 1982, 98% of Barbican flats are now privately owned and this is likely to rise to 100% as we were told that when a rental lease ends on one of the few remaining Corporation of London-owned flats, they are sold on privately. In contrast, the Golden Lane Estate was designed as social housing for key workers such as policemen, nurses and street cleaners. Today, the Golden lane estate is 50% privately owned by long leaseholders (owing to the right to buy scheme) with the rest owned by the Corporation of London and rented out as social housing.
Walking around the gated parts of the Barbican Estate, there was a definite feeling of exclusivity and privacy – everything looked beautifully maintained and you couldn’t see anyone’s front door without further access keys (Lauderdale Tower and Cromwell Tower are the only apartment blocks that have their entrances at street level).
We were told that there was something of a class system within the Barbican Estate, with those in the larger three-bedroom flats on the higher floors of the towers (or indeed, the lucky few in the podium houses, which I visited back in 2017 on an Open House tour) feeling a sense of superiority over their less fortunate neighbours in the smaller flats and studios in the lower rise blocks on the estate (granted that this was just one resident’s personal perspective). It all sounded rather snobbish.
We were fortunate enough to be shown inside a Flat 1A type in one of the Barbican towers (this was the first time I had seen any of the communal areas up close – unsurprisingly, they were a lot like the public areas of the Barbican Arts Centre with similar fixtures and fittings). Photography was not permitted inside the flat so I have used photos of an identical flat in Shakespeare Tower that is currently for sale via Hamilton Brooks.
The flat had a straightforward linear layout which allowed for relatively generous room sizes compared to other flats on the estate split over several levels. The flat also had a sweeping balcony that swept around the perimeter of the living room and bedrooms.
The owner of the flat had retained the original underfloor heating and Brooks Marine bathrooms and kitchen, which reportedly still worked well despite falling apart due to the fact it was over 50 years old. We were told that it is a requirement under the lease to lay fitted carpets in all of the flats for noise insulation purposes. It is clear that not everyone observes this rule (many flats on the estate are ostensibly uncarpeted) but we were told that if someone complains, this term of the lease is rigorously enforced and flat owners have been known to be required to replace expensively fitted flooring with carpets.
We were told that the flats were designed with much less storage than people have today as people then generally had fewer possessions (though I still spied a number of fitted wardrobes). The flat was still serviced by the French patented and designed Garchey waste disposal system, which enables residents to dispose of small items of rubbish such as tin cans, though a lot of people have now removed their system (the system, we were told, sometimes smells). Rubbish is otherwise collected daily from small two-sided cubby holes outside the flats.
Walking around the Golden Lane Estate was an entirely different experience to the Barbican Estate. Having had it pointed out to me, there was that aforementioned feeling of openness and accessibility – you could see lots of people’s front doors (originally all flats on Golden Lane Estate were completely accessible but now have been fitted with entry phone systems) and while the buildings were laid out across a number of levels, everything was still very accessible with lots of ramps and a clear layout. Unlike with the Barbican Estate, it was very clear how to get everywhere on the estate.
Adding to the sense of community were the communal gardens (not enough room for allotments but residents tend to grow things in bags), the Sir Ralph Perring community centre for elderly residents in the middle of the estate (which contained some nice Ercol furniture), tennis courts and gym/swimming pool. By way of contrast, the Barbican Estate has no community centre (we were told this was quite fitting as there isn’t really a sense of community) and the on-site gyms are all privately owned by third parties.
It had to be said that the Golden Lane Estate was slightly less well maintained than the immaculate Barbican Estate with a few buildings showing signs of disrepair. Residents did, however, appear to make a lot of effort with their balconies and gardens with many of the flats allocated enough outdoor space for people to consider their own.
Compared to the uniformly brown Barbican Estate, the different residential blocks Golden Lane Estate were pleasingly colour coded, the best example of this being the 16-storey Great Arthur House, which stood in the middle of the estate clad in cheery yellow screen printed glass. We were told that the sculptural element at top of Great Arthur House was a tribute to Le Corbusier and that there used to be a garden for residents at the top of the building which was closed off after a number of suicides.
Other blocks included Cullum Welch House, which was comprised entirely of small 30m2 studio flats (we were told that these were so well designed that having less space per person didn’t mean that they were more cramped – they just required the resident to own less stuff), Great Arthur House containing one bedroom flats with very narrow kitchens (too narrow to even be a galley kitchen) and bathrooms, Bowater House, Bayer House and Basterfield House each containing two floor duplex flats and with cantilevered staircases (I visited one of these in Bayer House all the way back in 2014 when I started this blog and called it my dream home at the time) and Crescent house containing distinctive barrel vaulted studio flats with a small bedroom enclosure.
Gropius House, Lincoln MA
One of the last stops on our 2022 trip to Boston was the Gropius House in the town of Lincoln, Massachusetts, named after the celebrated architect and the founder of the Bauhaus school of design in Germany.
The Gropius House was built as a family home in 1938 and was a collaborative effort between Walter Gropius, his wife Ise and their friends who contributed Bauhaus art to the house. Having faced the closure of the Bauhaus school by the Nazis, Walter Gropius sought refuge in London before eventually settling in the US. Although he was unable to bring his monetary assets with him, he managed to secure permission to transport his furniture collection which means that the house now contains the largest Bauhaus furniture collection outside of Germany.
Originally advised to reside in Boston’s Beacon Hill, the Gropius family desired a more open and spacious environment which led to them choosing the leafy town of Lincoln. With a vision to create a Bauhaus-inspired home, the family received $20,000 from Helen Storrow, the prominent American philanthropist, which allowed them to transform a hilly apple orchard into what is now considered an architectural marvel.
Inspired by the New England landscape, Walter Gropius envisioned a house that blended the principles of the Bauhaus movement with the local materials and construction methods of the region. The wooden frame construction typical of the area was enhanced with shiplap, a colonial-style cladding and field stones at the bottom. The compact 2,300-square-foot Gropius House represented a New England interpretation of the Bauhaus aesthetic, defying convention with its shoebox-like design without a pitched roof—a radical departure from the norm at the time and which wasn’t always up to dealing with the challenges posed by the New England climate. The floorplan was carefully designed without corridors and modern materials (such as glass bricks, cork floors and porous plaster materials to enhance acoustics) were used throughout to maximise functionality.
We entered the house on the ground floor into an entrance hall containing an open coat rack, (displaying clothing that enhanced the room’s aesthetic), wide balustrades, a powder room, a door leading to the basement and a winding staircase with a bent steel balustrade leading up to the first floor.
To the right of the entrance hall was the study space, which was intentionally positioned on the northern side to avoid excessive sunlight and contained a double desk imported from Germany. This room also included a separate entrance door for clients, reflecting Gropius’ intention to use the house as a teaching tool to showcase his approach to design and construction.
The study space flowed into the living room, which looked out onto the surrounding environment through two large plate glass windows – an unusual feature for a house in New England. Most of the furniture in this room including the iconic Butterfly stools, daybed, standing lamps and the Womb chair, were designed by Marcel Breuer, a protege of Gropius at the Bauhaus.
Around the corner in the L-shaped living room was the dining area, zoned by a curtain, which allowed for dinner to be dramatically unveiled (I really think this should be brought back as a trend). The dining chairs were Marcel Breuer prototypes – the Gropius family often tried out out new furniture prototypes while living in the house, providing a unique opportunity to witness the evolution of design firsthand.
Dinner would have been prepared in the narrow but carefully designed galley kitchen, which was laid out to ensure everything as within easy reach and contained appliances (garbage disposal, dishwasher, cooker, and refrigerator) that would have been modern for the time. The kitchen had a “cold” section (the section nearest the door) and “warm” section (at the rear of the room towards the window) with the cold section acting as a buffer to keep kitchen smells contained (again – a great idea that is due a comeback). The metal cabinets were reportedly sourced from a medical catalog.
Upstairs, were three bedrooms and two bathrooms accessed via an expansive upstairs landing.
The master bedroom contained a heated dressing area with built-in table and an ensuite bathroom featuring his and hers sinks. The Gropius family believed that sleeping in natural air was optimal and so left the windows in the sleeping area open to allow fresh circulation throughout the night, which meant that it would get quite cold during winter months. I wasn’t sure about the grey, black and red colour scheme in this room – there was something of the 1980s about it.
The guest bedroom was next door with two single beds lined up against one wall, for guests to sleep toe-to-toe or head-to-head.
Gropius went above and beyond for his daughter’s bedroom, giving her a glass roof, separate entrance to the house and a personal roof deck.
The architectural overhang and sunshade allowed for cross ventilation, while the arts and crafts desk provides a nod to traditional craftsmanship. The room could also be divided into different spaces with curtains.
Outside the house was a small covered terrace where the Gropius family had meals and played table tennis. The surrounding perennial garden, inspired by both New England and Japanese aesthetics, reflected Walter Gropius’s love for blending cultures and nature.
The Gropius family lived in the house until 1969 and after Walter Gropius’s death, his wife Ise continued to live there until she died in 1983. Today, the Gropius House is managed by Historic New England and is open to the public for tours.
Alton Estate, Roehampton SW15
An in-depth tour of the Alton Estate, a large council estate situated in Roehampton, southwest London, was a new entry on the 2022 Open House programme. Designed by a London County Council design team led by Rosemary Stjernstedt, the estate consisted of a variety of low and high-rise apartment blocks divided into Alton East (completed in 1958) and Alton West (completed in 1959).
The Alton East Estate consisted of point blocks and low-level housing (e.g. wide townhouses) designed for the 1950s demographics of the time: a lot of single people and daughters (who had lost their partners in the war) living with their mothers with less of an emphasis on families with children.
Notable sections of the Alton East estate included Horndean Close, a cluster of staggered houses around a communal green, a fashionable idea in the 1950s designed to evoke the feeling of a village green in which the local community could gather. This layout was also cheaper to build because there was no need to factor in a roadway, which wasn’t a problem as most people didn’t own a car in the 1950s before mass car ownership caught on. The use of timber and concrete (used to material shortages in the 1950s) combined with the trees (the original Victorian trees were retained and further trees added at the time the development was built), gave the close an almost Scandinavian feel.
Other notable parts of Alton East were the Swedish-inspired ten-storey tower blocks built atop a hill on the estate, emphasising the steepness of the hill and contrasted with staggered two storey blocks in a different colour. Oliver Fox, the chief architect, based the design of these tower blocks on similar blocks built in Gothenberg and Stockholm and the Lubetkin-designed Highpoint in Highgate: four flats per floor built around a central staircase and lift with internal bathrooms (by the 1950s, electrics lighting was good enough to light internal bathrooms) and sticking out external balconies (like Highpoint but not Alton West – see below). The planting around the blocks was intended to give this part of the estate a northen European/Scandinavian flavour and the differing tile patterns at the entrance of each block was intended by Cox to give each block a distinctive identity.
Moving onto Alton West, this part of the estate was considered by many British architects to be the crowning glory of post-World War II social housing at the time of its completion in 1958, largely as a result of its response to its unique setting. Built on a large expanse of parkland on the edge of Richmond Park, Alton West contained a number of different housing configurations: twelve-storey point blocks with four flats per floor (these had internal covered balconies unlike the towers in Alton East); terraces of low-rise maisonettes and cottages (including a terrace of striking bungalows built to accommodate pensioners, a relatively new social group from the 1950s onwards – before, elderly people would either live with families or, more depressingly, in work houses) and, perhaps most recognisably, five eleven-storey slab blocks, heavily influenced by the Unité d’Habitation buildings by Le Corbusier, completed in 1952 and now Grade II-listed. I understand that Alton West (and more specifically, Minstead Gardens, one of the terraces of pensioner bungalows) was used as a filming location in the 1966 dystopian drama film Farenheit 451.
The five eleven-storey slab blocks turned sideways to Richmond Park (they were originally meant to face out onto park but it was decided that this would look like a vast wall from a distance).
Housing inside consisted of flats and maisonettes, many double height with bedrooms on the upper floor (people in the 1950s still insisted on going upstairs to bed) just like in Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation buildings. Unlike the Unite d’Habitation buildings, however, these were just residential blocks with none of the communal “streets” of shops and facilities (or a rooftop paddling pool) in Le Corbusier’s designs.
Set apart from the five slab blocks built on the park land but very similar looking was Allbrook House, the very last building built on the estate in the early 1960s when economy was at its height. Allbrook House had a library with a distinctive curved ceiling at the bottom. This building has not been protected by the Grade II-listing and is scheduled for redevelopment in the near future.
Hatfield 20th Century Society Tour
The highlight of a recent C20 tour to Hatfield in Hertfordshire was the opportunity to visit the Grade II-listed Cockaigne Housing Group development.
With the name deriving from the Middle English word ‘cokaygne’ (meaning land of plenty) and designed by architects Peter Phippen, Peter Randall and David Parkes in the mid-1960s, the 2.8 acre development was inspired by communal housing projects created in Scandinavia and consisted of a staggered terrace of 28 houses built around communal gardens containing a tennis court, a children’s play area and a community house with a self-contained guest flat for visitors.
Each of the the houses (which appeared relatively narrow from the street) were built with a deep plan with accommodation arranged around a series of enclosed courtyards designed to allow sunlight to flow through the interior spaces, assisted by full height glazing throughout.
The development has been described by English Heritage as “the leading English manifestation of the courtyard house” and the houses as “consisting of a perfectly judged series of interlinked spaces which flow naturally one into another”. These spaces consisted of a front courtyard, hallway, kitchen and bedroom at the front, the dining area, living area and internal courtyard garden in the middle of the house and then further bedrooms, the bathroom and back garden at the rear.
We were fortunate to be shown around four versions of the same house, which had each been altered and renovated to varying degrees over the years. Two were in relatively original condition (houses 1 and 4 pictured) while two of the others had been sensitively restored into modern homes (houses 2 and 3 pictured).
Only one of the four (house 2 pictured) had the original internal courtyard in its original uncovered form – the others (houses 1, 3 and 4 pictured) had been converted into additional indoor living/dining rooms. I understood the rationale for converting this space but personally thought that the internal outdoor courtyard worked best.
The houses were unusual and definitely did flow well from one living space to another. Residents described the development as an enjoyable place to live with a great sense of community but complained of issues with the flat rooves (prone to leaks) and how the houses feel the weather (hot in summer and cold in winter). A recently renovated example of a Cockaigne house is currently for sale via The Modern House.
Other sights on the C20 tour of Hatfield included a number of other 1960s housing developments and the Marychurch Roman Catholic Church.
Dulwich Oasis 20th Century Society Tour
Even though I’m pretty familiar with Dulwich and its housing estates (having lived in Great Brownings since 2019 and house hunted rather obsessively in the area for a few years before that), I couldn’t resist joining a recent C20 tour entitled “Dulwich: Mid Century Oasis” run by C20 chair and local expert Ian McInnes.
The tour was a companion piece to McInnes’ excellent book, a deep dive into each of the mid century housing estates scattered throughout the area (still available to buy in Dulwich bookshops and online) and was no less comprehensive: over the course of five hours, we visited most of the estates in the area, including some interior visits into a number of types of property that I was previously unfamiliar with.
The mid-century modern housing estates of Dulwich were planned by the architects Austin Vernon and Partners and built by Wates after the Dulwich Estate knocked down most of the Victorian houses that populated an almost 20 acre area in 1950s after they suffered extensive bomb damage in WWII.
The tour started at the Dulwich Wood Park Estate, a cluster of apartment blocks that I became very familiar with during our property search. Supposedly Dulwich’s answer to La Villa Radieuse in Marseilles (I didn’t see much of a resemblance!), the apartments were designed in a way that isn’t often seen in new-builds: only four apartments per floor, generous proportions, dual aspect, separate kitchen. Priced at £3,000-4,000 at the time, these were relatively premium apartments.
Each of the apartment blocks were named after Elizabethan explorers and all shared similar communal areas with colourful tiling and terrazzo staircases though Knoll Court, the first to be built, had a few more elaborate details including a tiled mural and what might have been a water feature. The landings and corridors in all of the blocks were originally intended to completely open to the elements (like a lot of social housing blocks) but the architects decided against it.
We were invited to take a look around two stylish examples of apartments on the estate. Both had the standard layout with the large living area, two connected bedrooms and separate kitchen. Both apartments had the original screen dividing the hallway and living area removed – the correct design choice in my opinion. One of the apartments was on the 8th floor of one of the blocks and had almost floor to ceiling windows in the living room (albeit with bars across the bottom section of the window). We learned that these top floor apartments were something of an afterthought – the 7th floor apartments were originally going to be extra luxurious with a conservatory on the upper floor but it was decided that the 8th floor could be better monetised as a further four apartments. This explained why the lift only went up as far as the 7th floor with residents on the 8th floor needing to climb the final floor.
Next, we moved onto Rockwell Gardens, a terrace of three-storey townhouses with “caged” front gardens and tiled front facades. I recall viewing a house with this exact layout during our property search except that one was opposite the Horniman Museum on a very busy (and noisy) road. Like the one we saw, this house on Rockwell Gardens had four bedrooms (one of them up in the loft on the second floor), a separate kitchen and living area and a staircase that was closed off from the living area to allow residents to come in and out of the house without having to cross the living area (like you have to in a standard three-storey Wates townhouse with an open plan living area and staircase opening onto the living area). These houses were reportedly inhabited by a lot of diplomats when they were built (this was something to do with the ease of getting into Whitehall) and came with warm air central heating and a fireplace. These originally sold for £6,000.
The Whytefield Estate was a bus ride away. I was familiar with the townhouses on this estate, having viewed one during our property search, but not the intriguing one and two-storey courtyard houses.
We had a look inside one of the three-storey townhouses, this one with the zigzag windows on the first floor. These windows were installed, reportedly as an afterthought, in the townhouses on the estate that faced onto other townhouses so that the residents wouldn’t be able to see into one another’s houses (somewhat unnecessarily given that there gap running between the two facing rows of townhouses appeared to be about 20 metres wide).
This townhouse (like the one that I viewed during our property search) had its original ground floor layout intact – a utility room and a bedroom/study opening out onto a small courtyard garden, which in turn opened onto a communal courtyard. We were told that a lot of residents had converted this ground floor living area into an open plan kitchen living area with obligatory bifolding doors. Upstairs on the first floor was the living area and kitchen and three further bedrooms on the top floor.
Next, we were treated to a visit into one of the single storey courtyard houses. This intriguing bungalow had an unusually wide hall with the sleeping quarters straight (three bedrooms) ahead with a short flight of stairs on the left leading up into the living area with patio doors onto a courtyard garden. The courtyard garden also provided access to one of the bedrooms. These single-storey houses apparently sold better than the two-storey pyramid style houses (which we unfortunately didn’t get to see inside) due to the fact that the pyramid houses had upside down layouts (bedrooms on the ground floor and living area/kitchen upstairs).
I was also familiar with the next estate, Lings Coppice, having been inside a couple of the houses during our property search and also as part of the Dulwich Artists’ Open House event.
These two-storey terraced houses were designed by German designer Manfred Bresgen and had a distinctly European look. The original plan was to build more traditional-looking three storey townhouses in the Lings Coppice site but Waite was keen to minimise costs by building houses with two storeys rather than three. The estate was built on Radburn principles with the houses arranged around a central courtyard. These houses were to be designed to be deceptively spacious with deep floorplans and a skylight/double height atrium in the centre of the plan to allow light to reach all corners of the house.
The houses in Lings Coppice that we saw during our property search had been updated to varying degrees but this particular example had been radically transformed. The original galley kitchen had been completely removed and the living area/double height atrium area had been completely opened up to accommodate a kitchen area that was almost entirely comprised of a sleek kitchen island. The original garage had been replaced with a utility room though the original garage door on the front of the house remained intact to comply with estate rules. Upstairs, however, the floorplan had been left in its original configuration with four bedrooms, a bathroom and a strip landing overlooking the kitchen island below.
After passing through a number of other estates (Valiant Close, Loggets and Morkyns Walk), we ended up at the brutalist concrete part of Dulwich College, designed by WJ Mitchell in 1966 and completed in 1968. Originally intended to be a memorial hall, it is now used as a dining hall and occasionally as the venue for mid century modern furniture shows.
The final stop on the tour was Ferrings, part of the College Road Estate and arguably the most architecturally accomplished of the developments on the Dulwich Estate. While the original plan was for the College Road Estate to consist of four premium apartment blocks, there simply wasn’t the demand for flats at this higher price point in this area. As a result, only one of the four apartment blocks was built (Gainsborough Court on College Road) with interlocking single and two-storey houses (each of which cost around £15,000, a large sum in the 1960s) making up the rest of the development.
We were invited to see inside one of the single-storey ranch houses, which had a courtyard front garden at the front (onto which the front hall and dining room opened) and a walled garden (accessed via the 30ft long living area) at the rear. The house still had its original layout (many houses on the estate have been reconfigured) with a clear division of public and private living quarters and a number of original features as well, including the timber-clad double-height mono-pitch roof in the living room and an abundance of sky lights.
Modernist Pilgrimage 
