Wells Coates Architect, 20th Century Architecture

Wells Coates Architect, Modern British Architecture, UK 20thC Buildings Photos, Thirties Housing, Modernism

Wells Coates Architect : Architecture

Key 20th Century English Architect & Designer – Lawn Road flats, London, England, UK

post updated 5 Apr 2021

Wells Coates Architect
1895-1958

Major Wells Coates Building

Lawn Road flats, Belsize Park, London, Southeast England, UK
Date built: 1934
Lawn Road Flats Hampstead, Isokon London
photograph © Nick Weall
Lawn Road flats, Hampstead

Wells Coates – Key Projects

Featured Wells Coates Buildings, alphabetical:

BBC Studios, London, Southeast England, UK
Date built: 1931

The Circles, Long Ditton, Surrey, Southeast England, UK
Date built: 1930s

Cresta Silks factory, Southeast England, UK
Date built: 1928

Cresta Silks shop, Brompton Road, west London
Date built: 1929

Lawn Road flats – Isokon, Hampstead, north London
Date built: 1934

Lawn Road Flats Hampstead London Isokon
photo © Robin Lambert

Palace Gate flats, Kensington, west London
Date built: 1939

Sunspan House, Southeast England, UK
Date built: 1934-35

Wells Coates’ flat, Yeoman’s Row, Knightsbridge, west London
Date built: 1935

More architecture projects online soon

The architect was also a proficient industrial designer

Buildings in more detail

Isokon, Hampstead, London
Lawn Road flats was influenced by Le Corbusier‘s housing proposals

First Client: Jack & Molly Pritchard of Venesta Plywood – Isokon building, London
Four storey white block with clean styling and deck access.
The property includes 29 apartments,

Walter Gropius stayed here from 1934-37. Over famous residents include the artist Moholy-Nagy, write Agatha Christie and architect Marcel Breuer.

When we first visited in the late 1990’s the place was not only decrepit but quite scary, with signs of squatting and drug use. It has since been completely refurbished.

Isokon stands for Isometric unit construction.

The Circles, Long Ditton, Surrey, Southeast England, UK
Date built: 1930s
2006 – refurbishment:
John Winter Architect
Private house

10 Palace Gate, Kensington, west London, England
Date built: 1937
Refurbished lobby 2003 by John McAslan & Partners, Architects
Modern highrise

Exhibition project
Sunspan house, Ideal Home Exhibition
Date built: 1934

More architecture projects by this 20th Century English Architect & Designer online soon

Location: Tokyo, Japan / London, England, UK

Wells Coates Architect Information

Wells Coates co-founded the MARS group
born in Tokyo
1895-1958
Canadian parents

Isokon building in Hampstead, North London, England:
Isokon
photograph © Nick Weall

Education:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada : M&E Engineering
University of London, UK : Diesel Engine Phd, 1924

Worked for a time as a journalist for the Daily Express newspaper

Architect practice started in 1929, in England

Designing Modern Britain – Design Museum Exhibition
2006

Well-known architectural assistants to Coates: Denys Lasdun; Patrick Gwynne

Modern Architecture

Modern Architects

Wells embraced Le Corbusier’s architectural mantra that buildings should be ‘machines for living’ (machine à habiter). This ideal was best-reflected in his Isokon building (also known as Lawn Road Flats), completed in 1934. Indeed, the architectural critic J.M. Richards suggested that he improved on Corbusier, coming “nearer to the machine à habiter than anything Corbusier ever designed”. The building was compared to the exterior of an ocean liner by the novelist Agatha Christie, who lived there for a time, so clean and striking was the design.
source: wikipedia

Modern Architecture

British Building Designs

English Architects Offices

London Architecture Designs

Denys Lasdun – Wells Coates assistant

Oak Hill House, Hampstead, North London, south east England, United Kingdom
Design: Claridge Architects
Oak Hill House
photograph : Simon Kennedy
New Hampstead House

Architecture Studios

Comments / photos for the Wells Coates Architecture page welcome

Website: Wells Coates Architect