Modernist love: stylish 1930s living in the Isokon building

This design masterpiece in north London was once home to celebrated artists, architects and writers. Meet the man who has made it his dream home

Not everyone wanted Tom Broughton to buy the flat he now lives in. The tenant who was there when he viewed it three years ago said, “You don’t want to live here. It’s freezing. It’s mouldy. You can’t hang pictures.” Broughton’s surveyor “strongly recommended” that he didn’t go through with the purchase. And his parents were similarly baffled: “You’re spending how much on a one-bedroom, ex-council flat?” But Broughton persisted. “I couldn’t not,” he says.

The flat is on the fifth floor of the Isokon building, a sculptural, concrete behemoth in north London that is viewed as a modernist masterpiece. Design-led estate agency The Modern House called it “one of the most important penthouses in London.” Broughton didn’t need convincing. He had spent more than a decade obsessing over the building, its history, its contents, and the lives lived within it.

It was designed by the founders of the Isokon design company – husband and wife Jack and Molly Pritchard and architect Wells Coates – to create a model for modern, urban living. The block of 34 flats was finished in 1934 and marketed as all-inclusive, serviced apartments. (Broughton shows me an old ad for the flats that offers “A very full domestic service: shoe cleaning, window cleaning, everything done for you, meals in the flat or in the club.”)

The development attracted artists, architects and writers (Agatha Christie once lived here). The Pritchards also welcomed influential émigrés, including Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus; László Maholy-Nagy, the Hungarian painter, teacher and photographer; and modernist furniture designer Marcel Breuer. All of these are named on the building’s English Heritage blue plaque.

Residents kicked back in the Isobar restaurant on the ground floor – a club open to tenants and their guests (Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Piet Mondrian were regulars.) Left-leaning intellectuals could enjoy a three-course meal cooked by Philip Harben, now recognised as the first TV celebrity chef. A sample menu reads: “vegetable soup, boiled cod and egg sauce, port wine type jellies (just so).” Residents could also hoist their dinner directly into their flat via a dumb waiter.

But the party didn’t last. The building was sold to the New Statesman magazine in the late 1960s, and to Camden council in 1972. Broughton first saw the block 20 years ago, when he was new to London from his native Leicester, and by then it was in a dismal state. Eventually, in 2002, it was sold to a housing trust, then sensitively restored by Avanti Architects in 2004. Broughton – founder of spectacles company Cubitts – set up an alert on Rightmove and bided his time …

The front door of Broughton’s penthouse, where the Pritchards themselves lived, is made of Plymax (copper-coated plywood). As Broughton points out, the couple strayed from their ideals by having, essentially, a gold front door on their own flat. They had intended to live in one of the more “minimal” units, but, finding it too pokey, commandeered the communal roof terrace and built a penthouse.

Inside, it is a small, perfectly preserved plywood box. There is a minuscule fitted kitchen – U-shaped, built for one (the dumb waiter has gone) and a perfunctory bathroom, with shower over the bath and an original glazed door. A spartan panelled bedroom has a bed, two stools and the original fitted wardrobe. At the end is the main space – a generous living and dining room that opens on to a private terrace three times the size of the flat.

Many original features remain. The plywood panelling is intact and has aged to a glowing golden brown; Broughton uses the same sock tidy and trouser rack as Jack Pritchard; the tempered glass shelves in the living room have been in situ since 1934. Broughton has added his own collection of plywood furniture, most of it connected to Isokon. There are three Penguin Donkey bookcases designed by Egon Riss for Isokon in collaboration with Penguin; two Marcel Breuer Long Chairs designed to “give scientific relaxation to every part of the body”. The sofa is by Robin Day, a friend of Jack and Molly’s, and the dining table and chairs are by Alvar Aalto, a Finnish furniture designer Jack visited in the 1920s.

Two of Broughton’s favourite possessions are 1930s tea trolleys designed by Gerald Summers. A third, much rarer design is in the V&A. Wistfully, Broughton shows me an image of it on his phone. I ask if the Grade I-listed flat feels like home, or if he feels as if he is living in the venerated past? A century after the birth of modernism, do the ideals stack up? “You have to make a bunch of concessions,” he admits. “A lot of people want comfort and convenience. Here, there’s no lift – you have to go down five flights of stairs to take the rubbish out. The windows are single-glazed, so it’s not the warmest flat in the world, and the kitchen is so small there’s no room for a dishwasher or freezer. But these are just little ways in which you have to shift your life.”

Broughton did feel a weight of responsibility when he moved in. Unsure how to care for his “plywood box”, he sought the advice of furniture designer and restorer Nick Goldfinger – grandson of architect Ernö Goldfinger. He encouraged Broughton to rub Danish oil into the woodwork, which he dutifully did for two weeks, to give the panels a renewed lustre. Broughton also patched up the flat roof, tinkered with the original underfloor heating, and repainted the ceiling the regulation off-white. “I quite like the fact that you can’t really do anything else. It’s just choosing the furniture and living in it.”

The Isokon tea trolleys and bookcases remain a direct source of inspiration. “In the 30s, these weren’t pieces that filled people with a huge amount of excitement, but actually, that in itself is a kind of beautiful design challenge,” he says. “It’s the same with glasses. For most people, they are a functional item. But good design shows they can still be beautiful and interesting.”

The Isokon Gallery, telling the story of the building, is open Saturday-Sunday, 11am-4pm

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