Berthold Lubetkin

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Berthold Romanovich Lubetkin (December 14, 1901 — October 23, 1990) was a Russian emigré architect who pioneered modernist design in Britain in the 1930s.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Tecton members 3 Associated with Lubetkin 4 See also 5 Further reading 6 External links

[edit] Biography

Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Lubetkin studied in Moscow and Leningrad where he absorbed elements of Constructivism as a student at VKhUTEMAS. Lubetkin practiced in Paris in the 1920s in partnership with Jean Ginsburg. In Paris he associated with the leading figures of the European Avant Garde including Le Corbusier. Established in London in 1931 with his architectural practice Tecton he designed landmark buildings such as the two Highpoint apartments in Highgate, the gorilla house and penguin pool at London Zoo (clearly showing the influence of Naum Gabo) and Finsbury Health Centre. Ove Arup was the structural engineer of both Highpoint and the penguin pool. Tecton were also commissioned by London Zoo to design buildings for their reserve park at Whipsnade and to design a completely new zoo in Dudley. Dudley Zoo consisted of twelve animal enclosures and was a unique example of early Modernism in the UK though several of the Tecton Buildings were demolished or remodelled in the 1960s.

Following the Second World War Tecton received a number of commissions for social housing with high rise estates in Islington and Tower Hamlets. In 1947 Lubetkin was commissioned to be master planner and chief architect for the Peterlee new town. Concentrating on Peterlee led Lubetkin to break up Tecton. The masterplan for Peterlee included a new civic centre for which Lubetkin proposed a number of high rise towers. However the extraction of coal was to continue under the town for several years which would have caused subsidence and the developers and Coal Board would only consider a dispersed low density development. Frustrated, Lubetkin resigned from Peterlee in 1949 and retired to Gloucestershire where he managed a farm. Lubetkin continued to submit proposals to design competitions but by the end of the 1950s his style had fallen out of favour. Following the death of his wife Lubetkin moved to Bristol where he lived in relative obscurity. In 1982 Lubetkin was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal. He died in Bristol. His daughter Louise Kehoe published a fictionalised memoir of his life in 1995.

[edit] Tecton members

• Douglas Bailey
• Anthony Chitty
• Lindsay Drake
• Michael Dugdale
• Valentine Harding
• Denys Lasdun
• Godfrey Samuel
• Francis Skinner

[edit] Associated with Lubetkin

• Ove Arup
• Marcel Breuer
• Wells Coates

[edit] See also

• Ernő Goldfinger
• Isokon
• Constructivist architecture

[edit] Further reading

• John Allan - Lubetkin: Architecture and the Tradition of Progress (RIBA Publications, 1992)
• John Allan and Morley von Sternberg - Berthold Lubetkin (Merrell Publishers, 2002) ISBN 1-85894-171-7
• Louise Kehoe - In This Dark House: A Memoir (Schocken Books, 1995) ISBN 0-8052-4122-1
• M. Reading and P. Coe - Lubetkin and Tecton: An Architectural Study (Triangle Architectural Publications, 1992) ISBN 1-871825-01-6

[edit] External links

• Berthold Lubetkin, Architect (1901-1990): Designing Modern Britain - Design Museum Exhibition
• Twentieth Century Society article on Dudley Zoo

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