Isokon Flats

Early famous residents of the Isokon Flats included Bauhaus émigrés Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy, architects Egon Riss and Arthur Korn, Agatha Christie (between 1940–46) and Adrian Stokes. Jack and Molly Pritchard lived in the penthouse. The British architect Sir James Frazer Stirling was a resident during the 1960s.

A number of 1930s Isokon residents were later identified as Soviet agents and in the 1930s and Cold War period the building under surveillance by the British security services. In the mid-1930s Flat 7 was occupied by Dr Arnold Deutsch, the NKVD agent who recruited the Cambridge Five.

The communal kitchen was converted into the Isobar restaurant in 1937, to a design by Marcel Breuer.

The Isokon company folded during World War II. In 1969 the building was sold to the New Statesman magazine and the Isobar was converted into flats. In 1972 the building was sold to Camden London Borough Council, and gradually deteriorated until the 1990s when it was abandoned and lay derelict for several years.

In 2003, the building was sympathetically refurbished by Avanti Architects, a practice which specialises in the refurbishment of Modernist buildings, for Notting Hill Housing Association and is now primarily occupied by key workers under a co-ownership scheme. The refurbishment has also created a public gallery space to tell the story of the building, its notable residents and Isokon furniture.

The block has been granted Grade I listed status, placing it amongst the most architecturally-significant historical buildings.





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