Coates, Wells Wintemute

Coates, Wells Wintemute (1895–1958). Tokyo-born son of a Canadian missionary, he studied arts, science, and engineering in Canada, and moved to London in 1920. From 1927 he worked on many aspects of design, and was influenced by the work of Le Corbusier and others. In 1931 he and Jack (1899–1992) Pritchard of the Venesta Plywood Company formed the Isokon Company, which was to apply modern design to houses, flats, furniture, and fittings. The Lawn Road flats, Belsize Park, Hampstead (1932–4—rehabilitated by John Allan of Avanti Architects (2003–5) ), was a pioneering development of ‘minimum dwellings’ for tenants who desired few possessions or fittings: among early inhabitants were Breuer and Gropius. Coates also designed flats at 10 Palace Gate, Kensington, London (completed 1939, refurbished by Alan Brown of John McAslan & Partners, 2003–5), a variation on a theme by Scharoun of a decade earlier. His Embassy Court, Brighton, Sussex (1936), underwent refurbishment by Paul Zara of Conran & Partners from 2004. Wells Coates was one of the founders of the MARS Group, and was in the vanguard of International Modernism in England in the 1930s.

Bibliography

Cantacuzino (1978);
Cohn (ed.) (1979);
Kalman (1980);
Jervis (1984)