The Lawn Road Flats: Spies, Writers and Artists (History of British Intelligence)

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Bedroom Three - 2.51m x 1.91m (8'2" x 6'3" ) - UPVC double glazed window to rear, radiator, cupboard housing Worcester gas combination boiler serving central heating and hot water. Amidon LA 1996 An Illustrated History of the Royal Free Hospital. London, Special Trustees of the Royal Free Hospital. The text, photographs and floor plans are for general guidance only. The Modern House has not tested any services, The interior has its flaws, with the penthouse kitchen being windowless and some of the beams and ducts running randomly across walls and ceilings. But the building envelope with its round corners, its geometry and smoothness of the rendered concrete is a successful and very powerful modern statement. The heavy massing of the building represents a departure from the aesthetics of Le Corbusier’s five points of architecture; the building is a grand gesture in its own right, its appearance created through the load bearing concrete and a deliberate intention to make the building look coherent.

The story of a modernist building with a significant place in the history of Soviet espionage in Britain, where communist spies rubbed shoulders with British artists, sculptors and writers The information on housing, people, culture, employment and education that is displayed about Lawn Road, Wolverhampton, WV2 2DP is based on the last census performed in the UK in 2021. Marcel Breuer and F. R. S.Yorke designed a club with dining facilities on the ground floor of the Lawn Road Flats. Known as the Isobar, it opened in November 1937. It was furnished with Isokon plywood furniture designed by Breuer. Well cooked and economically priced meals could be eaten there by members and their guests. The first manager was Tommy Layton, later of Layton's Wine Merchants, who was succeeded by the chef, Philip Harben, famous later as the first BBC television chef.

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The building had several owners and at some point it was changed the name to Isokon Flats. Today it is a listed building which has tried to keep the original look while has been updated to meet current requirements. Dinning Room - 3.92m x 3.38 (12'10" x 11'1") - Natural wood flooring, double glazed door to rear, under stairs built in storage cupboard, space and area for table and chairs, arched feature period style fireplace with decorative mantel surround. Burke, David (2014). The Lawn Road Flats: Spies, Writers and Artists. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. ISBN 9781843837831 . Retrieved 9 March 2019. The Isokon’s ground-floor bar became a well-known hangout for the local and émigré intelligentsia of the time. The building was home to Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus, Marcel Breuer, designer of modernist furniture, and Laszlo Maholy-Nagy, head teacher of art at the Bauhaus school. It also attracted artists, architects (including James Stirling), Soviet spy Arnold Deutsch, and writers including Agatha Christie, who lived there between 1941 and 1947, writing her only spy novel, N or M, there.

Celebrated residents included: Bauhaus émigrés Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, and László Moholy-Nagy; architects Egon Riss and Arthur Korn; Agatha Christie (between 1941 and 1947) and her husband Max Mallowan, art historian Adrian Stokes, the author Nicholas Monsarrat, the archaeologist V. Gordon Childe, modernist architect Jacques Groag and his wife, textile designer Jacqueline Groag. The communal kitchen was converted into the Isobar restaurant in 1937, to a design by Marcel Breuer and F. R. S. Yorke. The flats and particularly the Isobar became renowned as a centre for socialist intellectual and artistic life in Hampstead. Regular visitors to the Isobar included nearby residents Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. Coates was inspired by Le Corbusier, who believed that buildings should be “machines for living”, and as a result the 32 flats were designed to create the greatest possible utility and comfort out of constricted dimensions. They had simple built-in plywood furniture. Early advertising stated: “All you have to bring with you is a rug, an armchair and a picture.” Between the mid 1930s and mid 1940s seven Soviet spies lived in the Lawn Road Flats, (now known as Isokon), and many others lived nearby. Who were these spies and what brought them to the area? To the front is a gravel driveway which leads to the side of the property and offers ample parking with an area of lawn to the front with established front boundary.

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A range of floor standing and wall mounted cupboards and drawers with one a half bowl sink unit, four ring gas hob with extractor over and oven below, space and plumbing for washing machine, tiled surround to work surfaces, tiled floor and part glazed door to garden. Please note that all areas, measurements and distances given in these particulars are approximate and rounded. consequently renamed the North-Western Hospital. It became the Lawn Road or North-Western branch of the Royal

Lawn Road is a quiet residential street in North London’s well-to-do Hampstead but for decades it saw the dramatic decay of one of England’s ground breaking modern buildings. Now the Lawn Road Flats are restored – and reveal again an ambitious concept of modern living conceived seventy years ago. The building’s list of former residents includes Bauhaus members [Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, László Maholy-Nagy] Soviet spies [Arnold Deutsch] and authors [Agatha Christie]. Can you tell us more about the creative community fostered in and around Isokon? Lounge - 4.12m x 3.29m (13'6" x 10'9" ) - Into bay and recess, natural wood flooring, double glazed bay window to front, period ceiling cornice, fitted log burner. You live in the building’s largest apartment on the top floor, which was once occupied by its founders. Can you give us a brief overview of the design and layout features of the apartment?

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Architecture critic JM Richards believes these stories are “closer to the machine housing than anything Le Corbusier never ever designed”

Shower Room - Contemporary luxury appointed with double tray having chrome effect overhead shower and separate shower off main system, low level WC, chrome effect heated towel rail, sink into storage unit with gloss fitted cupboard below, tiled throughout. All fixtures, fittings and furniture not specifically itemised within these particulars are deemed removable by the vendor. For Scotland, 2011 data is shown (update coming soon, the Scottish census was delayed by a year unlike the rest of the UK). Comprising bath with shower over, fully tiled surround, vanity basin with cupboards below, wc, radiator, part tongue and groove walls, airing cupboard with hot water cylinder.

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The flats were to be served from a kitchen on the ground floor since it was thought that the modern urban dweller should benefit from domestic services rather than focussing on such activities himself. The kitchen shut in 1936 but in its place the Isobar opened, a space designed by Marcel Breuer and F.R.S. Yorke, which attracted the emigré and home grown intelligentsia and bohemia of the time (including Walter and Ise Gropius, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Agatha Christie to name just a few) and helped the building to achieve a good part of its fame. Early example of monolithic reinforced concrete construction not used on this scale for domestic purposes in Britain before. In 2014 the Isokon Gallery Trust was established by John Allan and Fiona Lamb of Avanti Architects. With the help of the National Trust, and to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the building, they have created an exhibition space on the ground floor of the building, which tells the remarkable story of its architecture, its residents and its iconic Isokon furniture.