Wells Wintimute Coates (1895 - 1958, Canadian) was a man of two minds. Suave, confident chap about town with a killer design instinct, he was nevertheless an idealist; passionate about the role architecture should play in solving social and economic problems. He built relatively little, but his influence was immense and he is arguably the king of modernist architecture in Britain.
What’s he famous for?
The Lawn Road Flats in Hampstead (aka the Isokon Building) which served the needs of young professionals in the 1930s, with built-in cooking and washing appliances. Walter Gorpius, Marcel Breuer and Lazslo Moholy-Nagy were all residents. The idea behind the design was to free tenants up of material possessions in an age of new priorities, such as travel, with features like a communal kitchen. Coates was also responsible for the Embassy Court apartment block in Brighton. With expansive sea-views, the building once housed the rich and famous (including Graham Greene, Laurence Olivier and Diana Dors) but was then neglected for decades until a restoration programme by Conran & Partners restored it to its former glory.
