Berthold Lubetkin Architect, Modern London Architecture, England, Photos, Designs Images

Berthold Lubetkin, England : Architecture

20th Century British Buildings by Berthold Lubetkin / Tecton, London, UK

post updated 8 May 2021

Berthold Lubetkin – Key Projects

Berthold Lubetkin
1901-90
Russian architect, founder of Tecton in 1932
Berlin 1922-25
Paris 1925-30
Moved to London, England form Paris in 1930
Directed Tecton until 1947

Architectural influences: Auguste Perret, Le Corbusier – Modernist French architects

RIBA Gold Medal 1982 Winner

Famous Lubetkin Building

Penguin Pool, London Zoo, Regent’s Park, London, England, UK
Dates built: 1933-34

Lubetkin Buildings

Designs by Berthold Lubetkin architect, alphabetical:

Columbia Road flats, London, England, UK
Dates built: 1960-64
20 storeys high

Finsbury Health Centre, Finsbury, northeast London, England, UK
Date built: 1938

image from architect practice
Finsbury Health Centre
News update – 30 Jan 2012: continued use of Finsbury Health Centre as an NHS heath centre.

Gorilla House, London Zoo, Regent’s Park, London, England, UK
Dates built: 1933-34

Hallfield Estate, Paddington, west London, England, UK
Date built: 1954
Tecton ie Lubetkin + Lasdun et al

photo © Nick Weall
Hallfield Estate

Highpoint I, Highgate, north London, UK
Dates built: 1933-35

photo © Adrian Welch
Highpoint
The two apartment blocks Highpoint One and Two in Highgate, north London, are the most celebrated of Lubetkin and Tecton’s 1930s works. Completed in 1935 and 1938 respectively the buildings were commissioned by Sigmund Gestetner, proprietor of the office machinery company then based in nearby Tottenham. Both buildings are now listed Grade I.

House B, Whipsnade, nr Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England
–

Tecton – Berthold Lubetkin

Priory Heights Housing, Finsbury, northeast London, England, UK
Dates built: 1937-51

Spa Green Estate, Finsbury, northeast London, England, UK
RIBA Gold Medal 1982

Related London building : Isokon / Lawn Road Flats by Wells Coates 1934

More projects online soon

Location: London, England, UK

Berthold Lubetkin – Further Information

Berthold Lubetkin was born in 1901 in Tbilisi, Georgia. He grew up in St Petersburg and Moscow, Russia.

Russian Architects

He witnessed the Russian Revolution of 1917 and was in contact with key figures of the Constructivist period such as Rodchenko, Tatlin, Malevich and Gabo.

Berthold Lubetkin left Russia in 1922. He studied in Berlin, Vienna, Warsaw and Paris, where he achieved his first significant building, an apartment block on Avenue de Versailles, completed in 1931.

Berthold then left for England in search of work, and formed the partnership Tecton with six graduates of the Architectural Association in 1932. Tecton was dominated by Lubetkin.

The first commissions for Tecton were for London Zoo, with the Penguin Pool, completed in 1934, being the focus. The Highpoint apartments (1935 & 1938) brought international recognition, including praise from Le Corbusier who visited the first building upon completion. In 1935 Tecton began their association with Finsbury Borough Council, completing the Finsbury Health Centre in 1938.

He became a naturalized British citizen in 1939. He also married Margaret Church, an architectural assistant in Tecton in 1939. As architectural practice ceased at the outbreak of war they moved from London to acquire and manage a farm in Upper Kilcott, Gloucestershire, west England.

After the war the practice worked on a series of major social housing schemes in Finsbury – Spa Green, Priory Green, Bevin Court – and the Hallfield Estate in Paddington, which was completed separately by his younger partners Lindsay Drake and Denys Lasdun following the dissolution of Tecton in 1948.

Berthold Lubetkin was appointed Architect-Planner to Peterlee New Town in 1947. In 1950 he left having built nothing. Lubetkin worked on further large housing projects in Bethnal Green with partners Francis Skinner and Douglas Bailey. In 1969 the Lubetkins left the Cotswolds and moved to Clifton, Bristol.

In 1982 he was awarded the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture. In 1989 he was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Lubetkin died in Bristol in 1990.

Modern Architecture

Berthold Lubetkin Prize : RIBA
Winner 8 Jun 2006 – Red Location Museum of the People’s Struggle in South Africa
RIBA Awards : Noero Wolff Architects win the Berthold Lubetkin Prize.

Unbuilt Berthold Lubetkin Project
Peterlee New Town, County Durham, England, UK 1947-49

Highpoint : entrances redevelopment
Date of reneewal: 2007
Form_art Architects
The original building was designed by Lubetkin.
LONDON
Location: London, England, UK