Charcot House

Charcot House is a block of 75 maisonettes designed between 1952 and 1953 and built between 1955 and 1958 by the London County Council's Architect's Department. Colin Lucas was the architect in charge, with job architects including J A Partridge, W G Howell, J A W Killick, S F Amis, J R Galley and R Stout, and engineers W V Zinn and Partners. The structure is a reinforced concrete frame, constructed in-situ with board-marked concrete that is now painted, featuring storey-height prefabricated concrete panels incorporating Dorset shingle and Derbyshire spar exposed aggregate. The building has a flat roof.

The design consists of five tiers, each with fifteen maisonettes arranged in a 12-foot bay and set on alternating lines of two and three pilotis at bay intervals along the ground floor. Nine bays to the south of the lift shaft are unenclosed. The lift shaft and associated services are expressed on the roof as geometric features. Double-height lift landings are paved. Each maisonette has a private balcony facing east and gallery access from the west. The upper three tiers of flats also have steel emergency access balconies at bedroom level. The original timber windows have open casements and flush timber doors. Each maisonette contains a kitchen and living room on the lower level, and two bedrooms with an internally ventilated bathroom and toilet on the upper level. Internal fittings are not of specific interest.

A ramp of board-marked concrete in front of the lifts incorporates a Corbusian drip mould, reflecting the contemporary architectural style. The design of the slab blocks draws inspiration from Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles, which Howell and others visited in 1951. The proportions are based on his ‘Modulor’ and the Fibonacci number sequence.

The individual expression of each maisonette within the facade represents a new level of rigour and sophistication in slab design. The positioning of the blocks on the hillside, a revision made in September 1953, is a skilful response to the landscape setting of Downshire Field, an 18th-century landscape remodelled and enhanced by the design team. The steep slope provides purpose to the pilotis, and the arrangement of the blocks in relation to each other and the landscape is considered a ‘majestic’ piece of town planning. They form the centrepiece of the Alton West Estate, the LCC's most ambitious post-war development, regarded as 'probably the finest low-cost housing development in the world'.