Tecton in The 1930s
Emigrating to London in 1931, Lubetkin set up the architectural practice Tecton. The first projects of TECTON included landmark buildings for London Zoo, the gorilla house and a penguin pool (clearly showing the influence of Naum Gabo). Lubetkin and Tecton set up the Architects and Technicians Organisation in 1936. Tecton were also commissioned by London Zoo to design buildings for their reserve park at Whipsnade and to design a completely new zoo in Dudley. Dudley Zoo consisted of twelve animal enclosures and was a unique example of early Modernism in the UK. All of the original enclosures survive, apart from the penguin pool, which was demolished in 1979. According to the 20th Century Society: 'Encapsulated in the playful pavilions at Dudley is a call to remember the higher calling of all architecture, embracing not just material needs but also the desire to inspire and delight.'
Tecton's housing projects included private houses in Sydenham, one of the UK's few modernist terraces at 85-91 Genesta Road in Plumstead, south London, and most famously the Highpoint apartments in Highgate. Highpoint One was singled out for particular praise by Le Corbusier, while Highpoint Two exhibited a more surreal style, with its patterned facade and caryatids at the entrance. A detached three bedroom villa (64 Heath Drive, Romford) which won a Gold Medal at the local '1934 Modern Homes Exhibition' is interesting in that study of its layout and the floating horizontals of the elevations strongly suggest that it was used as a design prototype for Highpoint One's final form. Sympathetically restored under the supervision of English Heritage and listed Grade2, this villa is regarded by many as demonstrating the best features of the Tecton group style.
The Labour Party council in the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury were major patrons of Tecton, commissioning the Finsbury Health Centre, which was completed in 1938. Lubetkin and Tecton's achievement in Finsbury was to unite the aesthetic and political ambitions of Modernism with the radical municipal socialism of the Borough. The health centre resolved the tension between three key modernist ideals. First: a social function; universal access to healthcare free at the point of use for the borough's residents (a decade before the NHS). Second, the political; no longer was social good to be achieved through charity or hope, instead it was provided by a democratically elected and accountable municipal authority, funded through local taxation. And third, the element which made Tecton's work unique, the aesthetic. The building's tiled facade shone above the surrounding slums, its rational conception asserted the ideal of a socialist future as the rational endgame to progress; in Lubetkin's words the architecture "cried out for a new world". Lubetkin's modernism - 'nothing is too good for ordinary people' - laid down a challenge to the class bound complacency of thirties Britain. But Tecton's plans to replace Finsbury's slums with modern flatted housing were stopped by the onset of war in 1939.
Paradoxically the war would move Lubetkin's work from the radical fringe to the mainstream. As the fighting progressed, the British government became increasingly committed to the idea of building a fairer society when peacetime came. As this was articulated through propaganda, Modernist architecture became the visual expression for this radiant future. Abram Games designed a series of posters comparing the promise of modernism, one featuring the Finsbury Health Centre, with the appalling realities of pre war Britain. The uncompromising title to each poster was: 'Your Britain- Fight for it Now'. A further sign of this political shift was the erection in 1941 of a statue in memorial to Lenin. Designed by Lubetkin, the memorial marked the site of Lenin's lodgings at Holford Square, London in 1902/3. The Monument had been defaced many times by those opposed to Communist Russia and its ideals at the time. This resulted in the monument being placed under 24-hour police guard.
Read more about this topic: Berthold Lubetkin