Those of you who have been following Copperline for a while – since back in The Property Files days – may be looking at these photos and thinking that this apartment feels familiar. And you’d be right as I’ve featured properties at Langham House Close not once but twice before – here and here. Both were on the market with The Modern House, as is this two bedroom ground floor apartment. So why this development, you might be asking? What’s so good about Langham House Close?
If you’re interested in midcentury architecture and design then you may possibly know the answer to that question already. To be honest, I hadn’t come across this 1950s development until I spotted the first of those two apartments when it was on the market last year. Having been drawn in by the exposed internal brickwork, I was then fascinated to discover that this development was described by the Twentieth Century Society as “a benchmark against which other apartment blocks can be measured”.
The development is situated by Ham Common in the London borough of Richmond-upon-Thames. The estate consists of the Georgian Langham House, once home of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, and three apartment blocks. Langham House Close has recently been given rare Grade II* listed status in recognition of the exceptional design of the architects James Stirling and James Gowan, and also thanks to the manner in which the buildings have been maintained since their construction in 1957-58.
This apartment sits in one of the garden blocks, which are also known as the pavilions. These pavilions are ‘light’ in appearance and have walls of glass, as opposed to the main block where the external character is more greatly dominated by the use of brick.
One of the striking features in the previous two apartments was the way that the interiors had been designed to complement the existing features, where the homeowners had integrated pieces of midcentury furniture and lighting while still retaining a contemporary mood to the spaces.
And the same is true here, as period details like the brick fireplace above with its simple and graphic concrete mantelpiece are combined with a furnishing style that nods towards midcentury design.
This apartment has been recently refurbished under the guidance of architect Paulo Costa. Details I love include the bold punch of yellow in the kitchen – although not a cabinetry colour I could imagine opting for (I’m all about grey!) it works so well here, particularly as the yellow creeps into the more neutral living area thanks to the way the space flows around the fireplace, granting views between the different zones.
There’s some interesting history to this development that I quoted in the first blog post, and it feels right to repeat it – bearing in mind that this apartment isn’t within the main block, but still, these references are relevant within the wider context of this property.
‘Apartments in the main block feature balconies drained by concrete gargoyles whose pattern derives from Le Corbusier’s Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, and Maisons Jaoul… According to English Heritage, “this mix of vernacular and early modern movement influences with raw Corbusian concrete (far better finished here than in Le Corbusier’s work) heralded a new style of architecture in Britain, which with its acknowledgement of the massiveness of many buildings of the nineteenth-century industrial revolution was a truly British contribution to the international modernist canon of the late 1950s, and gave an appropriate aesthetic to the title ‘New Brutalism.”‘
If you appreciate the midcentury aesthetic, this apartment really is one of those rare finds.
This property is on the market with The Modern House. Photography from The Modern House.
