1-218 Pullman Court

Pullman Court, Streatham Hill, SW2

Pullman Court is a ten-range flat complex arranged in three blocks, built between 1933 and 1935 to designs by Frederick Gibberd with Mouchel and Partners as engineers. The development is one of the first examples of flats built in the International Modern style in Britain.

The building employs a reinforced concrete frame on 11 feet 3 inch centres, clad in four-inch concrete panels now rendered and painted, with some tile cladding and a one-inch layer of cork insulation. The roof is flat. The composition, nearly symmetrical in arrangement, was determined by the long, narrow site and the aim to minimise the impact of the busy main road.

The main composition consists of two long blocks set either side of an access road. Each comprises a three-storey front block with type A accommodation and a prominent central projecting stair tower, with long five-storey ranges extending at right angles behind (type B). These terminate in five and three-storey ranges (type C accommodation) at the rear, again set at right angles and running away from the access road; that to the north is arranged around an open-air swimming pool. The northern block has an additional three-storey wing projecting towards the road at its northern end (type C accommodation). Terminating the vista to the east is a seven-storey block with a double cruciform plan and entirely symmetrical composition (type D).

The ranges contain different sizes of flats. Type A comprises the largest units: three-bedroom flats with living rooms and dining recesses. Type B consists of one and two-room flats, each with its own balcony; two-room flats have a sliding partition to unite living and bedrooms if required, and are served by access galleries on the shady side. Type C and D are three-room flats reached off central staircases; type D follows a longer and less compact plan.

All elevations are finished in white painted render with original metal windows. Most flats retain original doors. All blocks feature a steel balustrade to the roof and a gantry to enable easy window cleaning, an early example of such a feature. The largest flats on the front elevation have projecting bays to their living rooms at front and back, clad in cream glazed tiles which were uncovered in 1996. The long south elevations display projecting balconies on the upper floors to alternating bays of alternating widths, with thin steel balustrading to sides and fronts, similarly alternating. Northern elevations have access galleries to each upper floor reached via stairs at the end of each range. Staircase entrances retain original glass double doors with chrome push plates and fittings. The lower rear blocks feature all-steel balustrades to projecting balconies and single central doors to central staircases. The rear block is similarly treated but presents a more monumental composition, with vertically glazed windows turning corners in the re-entrant angles on the front facade and broad concrete balconies to front projecting wings. The central entrance is set back under a broad canopy. Simple steel balustrading to staircases continues the exterior idiom into the internal public spaces.

Pullman Court's style owes something to the work of Walter Gropius and German constructivism, demonstrating a variety of detailing and refinement not found in other British flats of that time, combined with practicality in features and fittings that was unusual and far-sighted for the period. It was the first major work of Sir Frederick Gibberd, who went on to specialise in flat design and later became master planner of Harlow New Town and architect of Heathrow Airport and Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, though he did not venture another serious essay in such a fundamentally modern style.