Highpoint II

Block of twelve flats and penthouse, built 1936-8 by Tecton. The building stands six storeys high and represents a significant advance in modernist residential design of the pre-war period.

The structure is reinforced concrete with distinctive cladding reflecting its innovative internal planning. The central bays employ an egg-crate or box-frame construction system - a prototype for the post-war revolution in flat design - while monolithic concrete construction flanks either side, corresponding to the different plan forms of the maisonettes. The central section is clad in faience with inset brick panels; the entrance features marble cladding. A flat roof covers the main block, with a curved roof over the penthouse. Metal windows with mullions form regular rectangular openings throughout, while glazed bricks are used to the service stairs. The most striking external feature is the large cantilevered canopy to the front, which is partly supported on two casts of Erectheion caryatids obtained from the British Museum. Lubetkin intended these classical elements to be read not as part of the building but as garden ornaments. The entrance foyer has square paned windows and bronzed doors, and a rear aviary is attached to the building.

The interior reveals sophisticated modern planning. The six central four-bedroomed maisonettes feature double-height living rooms and distinctive oval stairs giving onto open landings. Maisonettes at either end contain four bedrooms, intended for larger families. The design includes separate lifts and stairs for tradesmen and servants, with suites of maids' rooms on the ground floor. The main entrance passes beneath the canopy into a boomerang-shaped foyer, with curved travertine ramps flanking either side and leading to lifts that open directly into the flats. Conoid metal wall-lights are a distinctive interior feature.

Lubetkin's own London home occupied the top-floor penthouse, comprising two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a large living room beneath the curved roof. The plan incorporates axial lines placed off-centre below, with concealed light sources within and to the inglenook fireplace. Large fully-opening windows lead onto a terrace with a built-in marble seat. The entrance lobby and living room are lined throughout in thick sand-blasted Norwegian pine panelling, a material choice likened to early forms of brise soleil or to a Russian dacha. Tiled floors run throughout the penthouse.

Highpoint II represents a remarkable progression beyond the stark white concrete modernism of the adjacent Highpoint One. It anticipates the box-frame construction with brick and tile infill that Tecton and others would employ in post-war low-cost housing, while its material richness and use of historical references also prefigure later post-modernist approaches. The building's combination of luxury materials with advanced structural innovation, and its incorporation of classical caryatids within a modernist framework, challenged contemporary architectural orthodoxy at its completion.