What to see at Open House London 2019
Running the course of a weekend, from Saturday 21st to Sunday 22nd September, Open House London gives the public free access to over 800 buildings in all of the capital’s 32 boroughs, ranging from the iconic (10 Downing Street, Barbican Centre) to the prosaic (a tour of Southwark Integrated Waste Management Facility, anyone?). To help you plan your weekend, here’s our edit of what to see at Open House London 2019.
Goldfinger’s London
In the 53 years Hungarian-born Ernő Goldfinger spent in London, from his arrival in 1934 to his death in 1987, the man who unwittingly gave his name to one of Ian Fleming’s villains (so notorious was his temperament) made a profound and lasting contribution to the city’s built environment. Any exploration of his legacy should begin with a trip to the home he built for his family in Hampstead, 2 Willow Road, an efficient, well-proportioned modernist vision crammed with artworks by Duchamp, Moore and Ernst.
It wasn’t until after World War II that Goldfinger got the highrise commission he’d been hoping for, Balfron Tower. The rationalist, orthogonal design of the block is a Brutalist masterpiece in the East End, celebrated for its daring attempt at offering a new model of housing for London and a clear precursor to his later work. Goldfinger temporarily moved out of Willow Road when the tower was completed, living in a top-floor apartment and throwing champagne parties with residents to ask them what they thought about his design.
His more prominent buildings include Trellick Tower, that Brutalist highrise that cuts an unmistakable silhouette in the north-west London skyline, and the 1960s Metro Central Heights, Goldfinger’s sprawling vision for post-war urbanism in Elephant and Castle, now a residential block, and considered by him to be his most significant work. His lesser-known Greenside Primary School in Shepherd’s Bush is one for the aficionados.
Follow in our Footsteps
Avid reader of The Modern House Journal? Then you’ll enjoy stepping into some of the spaces we’ve featured. Start with architect Peter Salter’s exploration of light, shadow and materiality at Walmer Yard in Notting Hill. The collection of four houses presents a new typology for communal living in the city, something we explored through our ‘Field Work’ project, for which we sent some of our team to stay there.
Our ‘My Modern House’ series takes us into design-led living spaces across London and beyond. For Open House 2019, architect Rupert Scott and interior designer Leo Wood are opening up their converted gin distillery in Whitechapel, while architect Henning Stummel is welcoming visitors at Tin House in Shepherd’s Bush: “I find it fascinating that architecture can carry stories and messages that it transmits as you walk through a space. We wanted to set the tone for what people experience as they come into this house and move around it. It’s lovely to think of architecture on those terms,” he said when we visited him.
Also in Shepherd’s Bush, Oaklands Grove is a project by two ‘My Modern House’ subjects, Duncan McLeod and Beata Heuman. See how the two collaborated on the crafted family home with a tour from Duncan himself.
North London’s Modernist Estates
Embark on a tour of north London’s modernist estates during the Open House weekend, starting at the epicentre of the modern movement in the UK, the Isokon Building in Belsize Park. The experimental concrete form is an exercise in Corbusian utilitarianism, originally comprising 32 functionally-designed flats arranged over five floors, with a penthouse on top.
Then head to Highgate, where tours of Berthold Lubetkin’s International-style Highpoint will encompass the communal spaces, acclaimed gardens and two flats. Head down the hill afterwards to see how modernism played out in post-war London with a visit to Stoneleigh Terrace, designed by Peter Tábori, who studied with Goldfinger and worked with Denys Lasdun. If you’re taken with what you see, we have a flat for sale in ‘Highgate New Town’, as it is known.
The Modern House HQ
Come and say hello to your favourite design-led estate agency on Sunday 22nd, when TDO Architecture will be giving tours of the 1930s ecclesiastical building they restored and converted into our headquarters.
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