Highpoint I Highpoint I (Numbers A To D) Highpoint I (Numbers G,H,I,K)

Highpoint I is a block of sixty flats built between 1933 and 1935 on North Hill in Highgate, designed by Lubetkin and Tecton with engineer Ove Arup for developer Sigmund Gestetner. The building represents a landmark of modernist housing in Britain.

The structure uses reinforced concrete monolithic construction with a central spine of columns, other reinforcement being built into the walls and floor slabs. It is six storeys high with a double cruciform plan and flat roofs, sited on falling land. The double cruciform plan and height were controlled by local covenants and by-laws, while inspired by Le Corbusier's Plan Voisin which Lubetkin had seen exhibited in 1925.

A curved driveway leads between pilotis under a projecting cantilevered curved porch to the angled front. All windows are steel, supplied by Williams and Williams, with mullions creating a regular rectangular glazing pattern. The long horizontal windows to the living rooms have a concertina opening arrangement, sliding along metal tracks. Larger flats at right angles to the main spine have long balconies with cyma curved fronts; the end flats have short end balconies. Square glazed windows in corners serve utility areas.

The hallway follows the line of the angled front, with a porter's lobby to the right, terrazzo floors, and a semi-circular seating area at the end. Four steps rise to an inner hall with lifts and stairs at either end. The space is broken by two lines of columns—one on the main building line and one at its centre—with metal ceiling lights. Flats are set at four cardinal points off each staircase, with one set at half landing above or below the other three. At the rear of the block is a wedge-shaped tearoom, anticipating the plan of the Finsbury Health Centre auditorium. A curving ramp reminiscent of that at the Penguin Pool leads between walls to the garden.

Above this open, free-flowing foyer, each stairwell serves four flats of two types: larger three-bedroom or type A flats at right angles to the main spine with long living rooms and balconies facing outwards, and smaller two-bedroom or type B flats along the length of the block with living rooms all facing south. All flats feature elliptical central columns, with one exposed at the entrance to each flat and access to a service lift (now disused). Original features include small tiled floors, chutes for dirty laundry, partly glazed doors to utility areas with plain doors to other rooms having chrome handles and switches set in the frame, and Highpoint sinks. Ground floor maids' rooms have been converted to additional flats.

Highpoint One was regarded as the ultimate expression of modernist styling in Britain, offering a relaxed serviced lifestyle on a striking hilltop site with extensive grounds. In 1937, architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock declared it in his account for the exhibition Modern Architecture in England in New York to be "one of the finest, if not absolutely the finest, middle-class housing in the world". Though intended for a wide range of incomes with some subsidized low rents, the block's success quickly attracted an up-market clientele. Many eminent designers of the period visited soon after completion, including J J P Oud, Theo van Doesburg, and László Moholy-Nagy. Most famously, Le Corbusier himself inspected the building in 1935 and shared the enthusiasm of other visitors.