The Eventful Life of the Lawn Road Flats: A Cultural Biography of Britain’s Modernist Icon
(book in process)
Unlike most architectural histories, which privilege the genius of the original architect and the desires of the patrons, my book explores the fascinating seventy-year life of the modernist Lawn Road Flats from its conception in 1932 to the present day. The Flats (also known as “Isokon Flats”) have lived many different lives: home and social center for the large modernist community in London, residence to a group of prominent Russian spies, grim council housing and, finally, derelict abandonment. In 2005 the building reopened after a gloriously restoration and with a new social purpose. At the heart of my biography of the Flats, I argue that buildings are dynamic entities that undergo constant change, sometimes physical change, but always change in meaning as they entwine with the lives of different people over time—owners, tenants, visitors, building staff, bureaucrats, estate agents and architects, among them. Buildings accumulate histories well beyond opening day, in relation to their users, events, and the changing social and cultural context in which they exist.
Lawn Roads Flats, Hampstead, London
Living the Modern Life in Greater Boston : 1930-1965
This project furthers my long-standing interest in the connections between ideas of modernity and the ways in which they shaped and were shaped by buildings and the larger metropolitan landscape. In it, I will explore the ultra-modern houses as well as the new progressive elite culture centered, surprisingly enough, in establishment Boston.
