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Wells Wintemute Coates (1895 - 1958), architect, designer and writer. He was, for most of his life, an ex-patriate Canadian architect who is best known for his work in England. His most notable work is the Isokon building in Hampstead, London. 1895 (MDCCCXCV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ...
1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The Isokon building in Lawn Road, Hampstead, London is a concrete block of 34 flats designed by architect Wells Coates for Jack and Molly Pritchard. ...
This article is about the British city. ...
Early years
The oldest of six children, Wells Coates was born in Tokyo on December 17, 1895 to Methodist missionaries Sarah Agnes Wintemute Coates (1864-1945) and Harper Havelock Coates (1865-1934). December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ...
1895 (MDCCCXCV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ...
1864 (MDCCCLXIV) was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ...
1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ...
1865 (MDCCCLXV) is a common year starting on Sunday. ...
1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...
The young man's desire to be an architect was inspired by his mother, who had herself studied architecture under Louis Sullivan and planned one of the first missionary schools in Japan [1]. Louis Sullivan Louis Henry (Henri) Sullivan (September 3, 1856–April 14, 1924) was an American architect, called the father of modernism. He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, and was a mentor to Frank Lloyd...
Coates spent his youth in the Far East, and voyaged around the world with his father in 1913. He served in World War I, first as a gunner and later as a pilot with the Royal Air Force. From 1921 to 1924, he attended the University of British Columbia where he obtained BA and BSc degrees, and in 1924, he moved to London where he studied engineering (obtaining a PhD) [2]. Among his first jobs in England was as a journalist and then with the design firm of Adams and Thompson in 1924. He established his own firm in 1928. 1913 (MCMXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday. ...
1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...
1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university with its main campus located at Point Grey, in the University Endowment Lands adjacent to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and another smaller campus known as UBC Okanagan located in Kelowna, British Columbia. ...
1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...
1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...
1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...
His childhood experiences in Japan would play an important role in his aesthetic sensibility that he brought to his architectural work, and this sensibility found a fitting outlet in the Modernist Movement, then current in Europe. He attended the 1933 Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM), which produced the famous Athens Charter, and was one of the founders, with Maxwell Fry, of the Modern Architectural Research Group (MARS), the British wing of CIAM. This article focuses on the cultural movement labeled modernism or the modern movement. See also: Modernism (Roman Catholicism) or Modernist Christianity; Modernismo for specific art movement(s) in Spain and Catalonia. ...
The Congrès International dArchitecture Moderne (CIAM) (International Congress of Modern Architecture) (1928 - 1959) was the think tank of the Modern Movement (or International Style) in architecture. ...
Impington Village College Edwin Maxwell Fry, usually known as Maxwell Fry (born 2 August 1899; died 3 September 1987) was an English modernist architect. ...
The Modern Architectural Research Group, or MARS Group, was a British architectural think tank founded in 1933 by several prominent architects and architectural critics of the time involved in the British modernist movement. ...
Role as a Moderninst Wells embraced Le Corbusier's architectural mantra that buildings should be 'machines for living' (machine à habiter). The machine á habiter ideal was best-reflected in his Isokon building (also known as Lawn Road Flats), completed in 1934. Indeed, the architectural critic J. M. Richards suggested that he improved on Corbusier, coming "nearer to the machine á habiter than anything Corbusier ever designed". The building was compared to the exterior of an ocean liner by the novelist Agatha Christie, who lived there for a time, so clean and striking was the design [3]. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2560x1920, 2751 KB) Isokon building, Hampstead, London Photographer: User:Justinc File links The following pages link to this file: Isokon building Wells Coates Isokon Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create...
Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2560x1920, 2751 KB) Isokon building, Hampstead, London Photographer: User:Justinc File links The following pages link to this file: Isokon building Wells Coates Isokon Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create...
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, Le Corbusier (October 6, 1887–August 27, 1965) was a Swiss architect famous for his contributions to what is now called modernism, or the International Style. ...
The Isokon building in Lawn Road, Hampstead, London is a concrete block of 34 flats designed by architect Wells Coates for Jack and Molly Pritchard. ...
1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...
Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (September 15, 1890 – January 12, 1976), was a English crime fiction writer. ...
The apartment building was the brainchild of Jack and Molly Pritchard, who in 1931 established a design firm featuring Modernist architecture and furniture. With simple living spaces strongly influenced by Coates' Japanese experience, and including built-in Isokon furniture, Isokon was "an experiment in collective housing designed for left-wing intellectuals" [4]. It became a haven for Germans escaping Nazi persecution and hosted many famous personages including Christie, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer[5]. 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar). ...
Bauhaus in Dessau by Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Gropius (May 18, 1883 – July 5, 1969) was a German architect and founder of Bauhaus. ...
Marcel Breuer Marcel Lajos Breuer (May 21, 1902 Pécs, Hungary – July 1, 1981 New York City), architect and furniture designer, was an influential modernist. ...
Isokon was ahead of its time: it won second place in Horizon Magazine's 'Ugliest Building Competition' in 1946, and would not be recognized as one of England's most important Modernest buildings for another decade. The building fell into disrepair by the 1990's but it changed ownership in 2001 and was fully restored by 2004. 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...
2001: A Space Odyssey. ...
2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Later Achievements An inventive genius, Coates revelled in introducing new ideas in his work. Among his innovations was the '3-2' architectural plan, where two living rooms on one side of the building are equivalent in height to three rooms on the other side, making two units vertically on three floors. He also designed the "D-handle", a simple door handle design commonly employed, for example, in Scandinavian furniture. In 1930 he designed a studio for the British Broadcasting Corporation, and among his technical designs was a microphone stand featuring an overhead counterbalanced arm that enabled the microphone to be moved to any part of the studio while remaining prefectly balanced. The design became a standard piece of equipment at the BBC [6]. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (3840x2160, 2872 KB) 10 Palace Gate, building by Wells Coates, Kensington, London photographer User:Justinc File links The following pages link to this file: Wells Coates Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used...
Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (3840x2160, 2872 KB) 10 Palace Gate, building by Wells Coates, Kensington, London photographer User:Justinc File links The following pages link to this file: Wells Coates Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used...
This article is an overview article about the Crown chartered British Broadcasting Corporation formed in 1927. ...
The thirties were his most prolific era. The Isokon was immediately followed by Embassy Court, Brighton (1935) and 10 Palace Gate, Kensington (1939). These were the only apartment buildings he would design [7]. He also had several private home commissions. During World War II, he again served with the RAF, this time working on fighter aircraft development, for which he was later awarded an OBE [8]. Brighton on the southern Sussex coast is one of the largest and most famous seaside resorts in England. ...
10 Palace Gate 10 Palace Gate is an apartment block in London’s Kensington area, designed by Wells Coates. ...
Following World War II, he, like some other well known architects including Gropius and Breuer (by then working in America), contributed to the British post-War housing effort by introducing an early scheme for modular housing he called Room Unit Production.
He also designed a remarkable boat, called the Wingsail. It had a rigid sail design mounted on a catamaran hull. Though he formed a company to market the design, it was not a success, as both the sail and the catamaran were ahead of their time.
He is less well known for his planning work. In 1937, he undertook planning for a slum clearance in Britain (not implemented) [9]. In Canada (1952-54) he prepared plans for Iroquois New Town on the St. Lawrence River in eastern Ontario which were also not implemented (the design was awarded to others) [10]. He also prepared plans for a Toronto Island Redevelopment Project [11], and was a participant in the Project 58 urban redevelopment scheme for Vancouver. Iroquois is a community of 1,200 located on the Saint Lawrence Seaway between Brockville and Cornwall, Ontario, just east of the Thousand Islands and an hour south of Ottawa. ...
Final Years in Canada Coates began coming back to Canada in the early 1950's, about the time of the Iroquois project, finally settling there in 1957. In 1955 and '56, he taught at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard with Walter Gropius but he was not happy there. He returned to Vancouver after two years, where he worked on Project 58. His last assignment was to design a monorail rapid transit system for Vancouver, dubbed the Monospan Twin-Ride System (MTRS). Once again, he was ahead of his time. The project was abandoned, but would be rejuvenated years later in another form known as SkyTrain. Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ...
The platform at Metrotown Station in Burnaby is one of the busiest in the SkyTrain system. ...
Wells Coates died of a heart attack in Vancouver on June 17, 1958. June 17 is the 168th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (169th in leap years), with 197 days remaining. ...
1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The University of East Anglia Library in Norwich has materials relating to his life and work. A list of the holdings is available on the WWW [12]. Additional reference mateials from the CIAM period are held at the CIAM Belgian Section of the Getty Research Institute.[13]
Coates' daughter, Laura Cohn, published a biography of her father called The Door to a Secret Room (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1999) ISBN 1-84014-695-8.
References
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