Iconic Encounters: London

Network Members' Meetup, November 4, 2024

We started our day on November 4th at Dorich House Museum for coffee and pastries at 9.30am. The morning included tours of Dorich House Museum (Kingston University) and the Network's newest London member, the Picker House (Stanley Picker Trust).

Dorich House Museum is the former studio-home of the sculptor Dora Gordine (1895-1991) and her husband the Hon. Richard Hare (1907-1966). The house was completed in 1936 to Gordine’s design and holds the largest international collection of her work. Gordine lived at Dorich House from 1936 until her death in 1991.

The Picker House was designed by Surrey architect Kenneth Wood (1921-2015) for the businessman and philanthropist Stanley Picker (1913-1982), head of Gala Cosmetics, and was completed in 1968. The interiors are by Terence Conran’s companies Conran Contracts and Conran Design Group. The tour will include Picker’s private gallery, added in the 1970s to accommodate his growing art collection.

Lunch (included) took place at Kingston University’s Town House Library, designed by Grafton Architects and winner of the 2021 Stirling Prize and the 2022 Mies van der Rohe Architecture Award and will be followed by a tour of the building.

Stanley Picker Gallery
In the afternoon we visited Under Construction, a new architecture exhibition at Kingston’s University’s Stanley Picker Gallery featuring work by architect Takeshi Hayatsu and collaborators where we had a curator’s tour and a chance to meet Takeshi and his students.

Reception and Film Screening Pioneers of the Dutch Modern House
We concluded the day with an arly evening reception and screening of Pioneers of the Dutch Modern House, with a Q&A with Iconic Houses founder Natascha Drabbe, supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Dorich House Museum and Iconic Houses Network are delighted to present a series of five short thematic films: “Health and Hygiene in the Modern Home”, “Palaces for the People”, “A Woman’s Place: Clients and Architects”, “Experiments with Space” and “Home as Self-Portrait: Architects’ Homes” explore innovative, avant-garde residential architecture featuring twenty iconic house museums from the Netherlands.

All Welcome | Free Entry | Booking Essential
Doors open: 5.30pm GMT
Reception: 5.30-6pm GMT
Screening: 6.00-7pm GMT

Sunday November 3rd - Bonus visit!

Isokon Gallery and private Isokon ‘Existenzminimum’ flat No 12
For this special occasion, Magnus Englund, Director of the Isokon Gallery Trust, opened the Isokon Gallery to our group on Sunday November 3rd, for a tour from 4-5pm. Architect John Allan, Chairman of the Isokon Gallery Trust welcomed the group with an introduction. In addition it was possible to visit one of the privately owned ‘Existenzminimum’ flats which is in pristine condition. While Wells Coates was the architect for the building (with no formal training in architecture, and Isokon Flats being his first building), it was the client Molly Pritchard who drew up the brief of the flats’ size, layout and function, directly influenced by the German concept of ‘Existenzeminimum’. Isokon Flats from 1934 is one of only two Grade I listed blocks of flats in England (Highpoint by Lubetkin being the other one) and it’s the very first block of flats (but not house) in the country built with reinforced concrete. We were extra privileged to be allowed by the current owner to take a look into the penthouse that Jack and Molly Pritchard lived in themselves.

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Updated October 19, 2024