Berthold Lubetkin

Convinced that architecture was a tool for social progress, Russian-born BERTHOLD LUBETKIN (1901-1990) was one of the European émigrés who championed modernism in mid-20th century Britain and whose built projects include the Highpoint housing complex, London Zoo penguin pool and Finsbury Health Centre.

BIOGRAPHY

1901 Berthold Romanovich Lubetkin is born to a liberal Jewish family in Tiflic, the capital of Georgia.

1917 Leaving school in St Petersburg, Lubetkin goes to Moscow to enrol at art school. After the Revolution his art school closes and he joins the new Bolshevik art school system of SVOMAS free workshops.

1922 Travels to Berlin to work as an assistant on a state-sponsored Exhibition of Russian Art. Studies under Wilhelm Worringer, a scholar in the history of carpet design and aesthetics, at the Berlin Textile Academy.

1923 Moves to Warsaw for two years of architectural studies at Warsaw Polytechnic.

1925 Arrives in Paris to complete his study of architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he joins Auguste Perret’s radical atelier. 1927 Commissioned by a neighbour, the circus artist Roland Tutin, to design an acrobatic set for a circus nightclub the Club Trapèze Volant.

1928 Starts work on the design of a new apartment building at 25 Avenue de Versailles with a friend, the Polish-born architect Jean Ginsburg.

1931 Moves to London with a commission to design a house for the Harari family.

 1932 Co-founds Tecton as a radical architectural group with younger architects including Francis Skinner and Denys
Lasdun. Tecton wins its first commission to design the 1932-1934 Gorilla House at London Zoo in Regent’s Park, which marks the start of Lubetkin’s collaboration with the Danish-born structural engineer Ove Arup  
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  1933 Starts work on the second London Zoo commission, the 1933-1934 Penguin Pool.   Appointed as architect of the 1933-1935 Highpoint One apartment block in Highgate, north London.

1934 Appointed as architect of the new 1934-1935 Whipsnade Zoo at Dunstable, Bedfordshire, where Lubetkin also designs a series of bungalows.

1935 Finsbury Council commissions Lubetkin and Tecton to design the 1935-1938 Finsbury Health Centre.   Tecton begins two year project to design a new zoo at Dudley in Warwickshire. 

1936 Starts work on the design of the 1936-1938 Highpoint Two.

1937 Begins the design of the Busaco Housing Estate in Finsbury, which will be completed after World War II as the 1943-1957 Priory Green Estate. Lubetkin is feted at the opening of the Exhibition of Modern Architecture in England at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

1938 The Finsbury Health Centre opens and Lubetkin is commissioned to devise an urban plan for the reconstruction of the borough. Starts work on the construction of the Sadler Street Estate in Finsbury which, like the work on the Busaco, is disrupted by the war and then resumes as the 1943-1950 Spa Green Estate.

1939 Marries Margaret Church and, his projects suspended with the outbreak of World War II, they move to a Gloucestershire farm.

1943 Resumes work on the Sadler and Busaco housing estates in Finsbury, now the 1943-1950 Spa Green Estate and 1943-1957 Priory Green Estate.

1946 Begins the development of the 1946-1954 Holford Square Housing project in Finsbury and the 1946-1954 Hallfoield housing estate in Paddington.

1948 Appointed architect-planner of Peterlee, a new town for 30,000 residents in County Durham, only to resign the following year. Tecton disbands and Lubetkin completes his housing projects with Francis Skinner and Douglas Bailey.

1951 Starts work with Skinner and Bailey on the design of the Dorset Street Estate in Shoreditch.

1982 Awarded a Gold Medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects.

1990 Death of Berthold Lubetkin.

http://www.themodernist.co.uk/2011/09/modernist-of-the-month-berthold-lubetkin-architect/