moderne Archives - H is for Home Harbinger

My favourite building in the UK is Embassy Court in Brighton. It’s positioned on a corner plot directly opposite the seafront and the size, shape and colour of the block of flats sits perfectly amongst its Regency neighbours.

Art Deco and Moderne architecture can be identified by either its curves (think 1930s ocean liners) or blocks (like white Lego houses). The (often flat-roofed) buildings were constructed using lots of reinforced concrete with wraparound, steel-framed glass windows.

Many original Art Deco homes keep their exterior looks; unfortunately, the interiors have often been messed about with beyond recognition. 21^st century domestic life has changed dramatically from what it was when these housed were first constructed. We want open-plan life and large, airy rooms.

The Brighton house we’ve featured below is almost brand new and has been built in the Art Deco manner – with today’s type of lifestyle at its heart. The other two Art Deco homes are contemporary to the original style. Both include integral garages – cars were de rigueur for the middle classes at the time.

£332,500 – 40 Station Road, Weston-Super-Mare BS23 1XY

Central location
Semi detached ‘Art Deco’ style house
• 4 bedrooms
• 2 reception rooms
• Kitchen/breakfast room
• Gas central heating & double glazing
• Gardens & garage
• Requires modernisation

A rare opportunity to acquire a 4 bedroom semi detached ‘Art Deco’ style house with recently rendered elevations under a flat roof.

£600,000 – The Grove, Bearsted, Maidstone ME14 4JB

• Extended, modern & beautifully presented
• Located in a quiet and sought after cul de sac a short distance from the Village Green
• Close to schools and local amenities
• Downstairs Cloakroom
• Newly re-fitted shower room and kitchen
• Conservatory

£4,000,000 – 39 Roedean Road, Brighton BN2 5RA

• Detached Art Deco style house, circa 2013 – 10 year warranty
• 6 double bedrooms all en suite
• 9456 sq. ft
• South facing garden with pool & sun terraces
• Off street parking and double garage

With gentle curves and strong lines accentuated by banks of energy efficient crittal style aluminium windows this beautiful house is a stunning reimagining of the classic ‘style moderne’ with glass walls to bring the light and sea views into the heart of the home, an exacting finish with the best of 21st century fittings including a Poggenphol kitchen with top of the range Gaggenhau fittings, a wine tasting room and a library created by one of our top craftsmen Michael Mancini, and C.P Hart bathrooms as well as underfloor heating throughout
A glamorous reimagining of the Art Deco style delivers a unique coastal home beautifully designed to make the most of the stunning setting and although it is like stepping into a painting and every room has a designer finish, it is also a family friendly, comfortable home with a discreet practical ethos.

Born in Tokyo, Wells Coates (1895-1958) was a British modernist architect and designer of Canadian parentage. Greatly inspired by the likes of Le Corbusier, he designed a number of public and private commercial and residential buildings.

My first proper introduction to Wells Coates was when I was at the University of Brighton. I did a summer school course in photography where I focussed on capturing images of Embassy Court (seen at the top of our montage above) – my favourite building in the city – located on the seafront in Hove. It was the mid-1990s at the time, and the building (erected in 1935) was in a very sorry state; the 11-storey façade was rusty, crumbling and strewn with ugly satellite dishes – but its beauty still shone through. Today it’s a des-res and one of the 72 flats would set you back a cool half a million pounds and more!

In 1934, he designed the Isokon / Lawn Road Flats, Hampstead for Molly and Jack Pritchard. The couple and their family lived at the address, with some of the other 32 flats being occupied by design greats of the time; Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Maholy-Nagy.

The following year – with David Bartholomew Pleydell-Bouverie – Wells Coates designed the Sunspan Houses. Fifteen of them were built; including one in Portsmouth, another in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, three on Woodlands Avenue in New Maldon, Essex, Chadwell St Mary, Essex and Esher in Surrey.

In 1939, he designed 10 Palace Gate, a block of luxury flats in London’s Kensington for construction company, Randall Bell. Flats currently command rents of over £1,000 per week. A space in the building’s underground car park is currently for sale for the princely sum of £65,000.

He designed the Telecinema – one of the 1951 Festival of Britain buildings. Apparently it was:

…the first theatre in the world in which big screen television, 3-dimensional pictures and tereophonic (sic) sound took its place on par with the cinema… spectators wearing (the) special stereoscopic spectacles…

The woven upholstery fabric for the Telekinema’s seating was designed by Lucienne Day in 1951.⁠⁠

In addition to buildings, he designed office furniture for Kingfisher Limited of West Bromwich, some examples are included in our montage above. He also created 9 models of radio for Ekco including the round Bakelite AD65 (1934), AD75 (1940), A22 (1945) and rectangular A33 RadioTime (1946).

There are a number of books that investigate the man and his works. His daughter, Laura Cohn, authored The Door to a Secret Room: A Portrait of Wells Coates. There’s a 1970s monograph written by Sherban Cantacuzino and a more recent one by Elizabeth Darling.

_credit

Additional image credits:
Artnet | V&A

H is for Home Harbinger

Tag: moderne

Property spotlight: Art Deco homes

£332,500 – 40 Station Road, Weston-Super-Mare BS23 1XY

£600,000 – The Grove, Bearsted, Maidstone ME14 4JB

£4,000,000 – 39 Roedean Road, Brighton BN2 5RA

Designer Desire: Wells Coates