Jack and Molly Pritchard
The 1962 Isokon bungalow in Blythburgh, Suffolk was designed by Jennifer and Colin Jones, and is the former home of Jack and Molly Pritchard. As the ultimate 1930s modern couple, the Pritchard’s embraced radical new design, food, architecture, politics and education with equal gusto. Their vast network of friends included major characters of the 20th century; Henry Moore, Walter & Ise Gropius, Alvar Aalto, Charles & Ray Eames, Robin & Lucienne Day, Sigfried & Carola Giedion, Ernst Freud, Henry Morris, Charlotte Perriand, Ben Nicholson, László & Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Julian Huxley, Christopher Heal, Marcel Breuer, Gordon Russell and Herbert Read to name but a few, many who came to visit the Pritchard’s at Isokon in Blythburgh.
Lawn Road Flats
The most famous legacy of the Pritchard’s is Lawn Road Flats in North London, now named The Isokon Building and listed Grade I since 1999. Commissioned from the Canadian architect Wells Coates and opened in 1934, the radical modernist concrete building took direct inspiration from Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, both whom Coates and Pritchard knew personally. The Pritchard’s lived in the penthouse with their sons Jonathan and Jeremy next door. The list of early tenants is a who’s who of the most influential people in art, architecture, politics, and writing. The ground floor Isobar restaurant, designed by the Bauhaus master Marcel Breuer in 1937, was a social hub not only for the residents but also for the wider Hampstead intellectual community, many who were émigrés who had recently escaped Nazism. At least five residents also secretly worked for Soviet intelligence.
Isokon Furniture Company
Another important Pritchard legacy is the Isokon Furniture Company, first formed as a partnership with Wells Coates but later employing the Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius as its Controller of Design, with Bauhäuslers Marcel Breuer as chief designer and László Moholy-Nagy as graphic designer. The most famous design is the Long Chair, while Egon Riss and Ernest Race later added the iconic Isokon Penguin Donkeys. The 1930s Isokon furniture was made in Tallinn, Estonia through Venesta, a large plywood manufacturer that employed Jack Pritchard for a decade from 1925. The production in Estonia ceased with the outbreak of war, but restarted in 1963 with production in Britain. Isokon Plus continues to produce the furniture to this day.
Text by Magnus Englund.
For further information on the Isokon story, please see Leyla Daybelge and Magnus Englund’s book ‘Isokon and the Bauhaus in Britain’.
