Isokon Building
The Isokon building in Lawn Road, Hampstead, London, is a concrete block of 34 flats designed by architect Wells Coates for the influential furniture designer Jack Pritchard and his wife Molly. They were built between 1933-1934 as an experiment in communal living and named after Pritchard’s furniture company ‘Isokon’. Wells embraced Le Corbusier’s architectural mantra that buildings should be ‘machines for living’ (machine à habiter). This ideal was best reflected in the Isokon building.
The Isokon company folded during World War II and in 1972 the building was sold to Camden London Borough Council. It gradually deteriorated and was abandoned in the 1990s and lay derelict for several years. In 2003 the building was sympathetically restored by Avanti Architects, who specialise in the refurbishment of modernist buildings, for the Notting Hill Housing Trust. It is now primarily occupied by key workers under a co-ownership scheme and has been granted Grade I listed status.