Tom Broughton, founder of Cubitts, talks spectacles, modernist design and nude sunbathing on The Modern House Podcast episode two
In our podcast, co-founder of The Modern House, Matt Gibberd, invites guests to choose their top three favourite living spaces from around the world. In the first episode, Cereal magazine founder Rosa Park discussed her parents’ home in Seoul, Jim Ede’s Kettle’s Yard and Vincent van Duysen’s home in Antwerp – listen here.
In this episode, Tom Broughton, founder of modern spectacle makers Cubitts, invites us for a chat at his home in the Isokon Building penthouse, which he bought via The Modern House in 2018. We’re no stranger to the penthouse, having made a film with Tom as part of our collaboration with Cubitts in 2019, in which we collaborated on a pair of one-off frames to raise money for Maggie’s cancer charity.
It’s no surprise Tom chose his penthouse as his first pick of top three homes. The wood-panelled apartment, made for its first owners Jack and Molly Pritchard, is the crowning jewel of the Grade I-listed Isokon Building, which was completed in 1934 to a radical early Modernist design by architect Well Coates. Tune in to hear Tom talk about the charming economy of the design, how he approached furnishing the museum-quality space and the appeal of living in a building that once operated as the de facto London campus of the Bauhaus for the German school’s émigré faculty staff.
Tom’s second choice is also Modernist and wood-panelled: Le Corbusier’s Cabanon in the South of France, which Tom became aware of after seeing it reconstructed at the RIBA. “It has such a strong sense of personality,” says Tom.
Lastly, his third pick goes to his first flat on Cubitts Street in King’s Cross, which inspired him so greatly he used it as the name of the spectacle company he set up in 2013.
Listen now to hear Tom talk more about his top three homes. Make sure to subscribe, rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Happy listening.
