Isokon Building Architectural Model

Inspired by one of Britain's most significant modernist landmarks, this architectural object interprets the Isokon Building — the Lawn Road Flats — as a refined, sculptural form.

Designed by Wells Coates and completed in 1934 in Hampstead, the Isokon Building is a defining work of International Modernism: radical in its social ambition, uncompromising in its architecture, and still unlike anything else on a London street.

Read the full Isokon Building architecture guide

 

A modernist landmark, interpreted as an object

 

The Isokon flats were conceived as a machine for living — compact, service-based, and stripped of ornament. Wells Coates's design expressed that ambition in a single bold gesture: a stack of cantilevered access galleries running the full width of the south-facing façade, their horizontal rhythm creating a composition that feels as modern today as it did in 1934.

This architectural model focuses on the building's defining characteristics:

• the strong horizontal cadence of the running deck façade
• the planar clarity of the concrete massing
• the abstract geometry that makes the building instantly legible at any scale

By reducing the building to its essential architectural elements, the object allows the form and proportion of the Isokon Building to be appreciated independently of scale and context.

 

Why the Isokon Building works as an architectural model

 

The Isokon Building translates especially well into object form because its design is driven by bold geometry rather than surface decoration, a clearly legible and strongly horizontal silhouette, and the same abstract, planar qualities that define the building at full scale. These characteristics remain powerful when the building is abstracted and miniaturised. The object feels both architectural and sculptural — and carries the quiet authority of a building that has never needed ornament to make its point.

 

Craft, materials, and finish

 

Each Isokon Building object is crafted with an emphasis on material honesty and precision. The finish is intentionally understated, allowing light and shadow to articulate the form — much as they do on the original building's concrete façade. The result is an object that sits comfortably within architectural interiors and design studios, on bookshelves and workspaces, and in collections focused on modernist or twentieth-century design. It is equally suited to architects, designers, Bauhaus enthusiasts, and those with a personal connection to Hampstead or the remarkable community that once lived here.

 

A piece of modernist history

 

The Isokon Building was home to Walter Gropius, László Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer, and Agatha Christie. It was the setting for Bauhaus ideas taking root in Britain, and for a spy network that would reverberate for decades. Grade I listed since 2000, it is recognised as a building of exceptional importance — not just architecturally, but historically. As an object, the Isokon Building offers a way to engage with that history in tactile, physical form.

 

Product details

 

• Subject: Isokon Building (Lawn Road Flats), Hampstead, London
• Architectural style: International Modernism
• Original completion: 1934
• Architect: Wells Coates
• Designed and made by: Chisel & Mouse

 

Learn more about the Isokon Building

 

For a detailed exploration of the building's architecture, history, residents, and cultural legacy, see our in-depth guide:

Isokon Building (Lawn Road Flats) Architecture: Modernist Landmark in Hampstead