A concrete symbol of the European Avant Garde, Lubetkin soon associated himself with Worringer’s former employee and golden child Le Corbusier. Instrumental in the formation and shaping of debates of Constructionism, it was this circle that encouraged him to enter the Palace of the Soviets competition. This architectural contest sought construction plans for an administrative centre and congress hall in Moscow, near the Kremlin, and was won by Boris Iofan’s neoclassical concept. This context serves to demonstrate Lubetkin’s very earliest forays into the social movements behind his work.
To a modern audience, it is the products of his time in London for which Lubetkin is more commonly remembered. After a decade in Paris, he moved to London with a commission to map out a house for the Harari family. Soon after in 1932, he co-founded Tecton, the radical architectural group partnered with up-and-coming designers Francis Skinner and Denys Lasdun.
Tecton developed under Lubetkin’s guidance until it was disbanded two decades later. Traditionally translated into English as ‘carpenter’, the name also conveys a more mechanical rather than artisanal skill, more akin to technical architecture. This unison of the art of architecture with its at once physical and social implications punctuated Lubetkin’s own views, and indeed the way in which he translated European modernism for a London audience.
Perhaps surprisingly, Tecton’s first commission was to design the 1932-4 Gorilla House at London Zoo. Working alongside Danish-born structural engineer Ove Arup, this foray into the wilds of Regent’s Park was the first of a chain of commissions, of which the 1933 Penguin Pool is the most renowned. Featuring walkways in the form of a double helix, and with a wide concrete basin, this pool was a feat of constructivist style. Whipsnade Zoo, Berkshire and Dudley Zoo also saw him appointed as main architect. The latter project was contemporaneously seen as a beacon of hope and entertainment to the bleak, impoverished West Midlands. Lubetkin believed that the construction of a perfect modernist building would transform the social livelihood of the local people. This retrospective video suggests that his hopes were realised.

Berthold Lubetkin: The Russian Architect Who Revolutionised London

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