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an ‘urbanist’, designing streetscapes and masterplans for English cities. ‘My anxiety about
wanting to be an architect is long gone’, says Linda, reflecting upon her chosen profession and
her education in town planning and urban design in Auckland and Edinburgh respectively. Her
practice, Aitken Leclercq is currently working with renowned Dutch architects MVRDV on a
master plan for Toxteth in the northern English city of Liverpool. It is Linda’s involvement in the
design industry that makes her like-minded company for the increasing number of architects
and designers who inhabit Highpoint. One of Linda’s neighbours is renowned architectural critic,
Jeremy Melvin, whose apartment sits directly above hers.
Although the parents of the previous owners of Linda’s apartment had been friends of
Lubetkin’s, it is clear that they did not have a particular affinity with the design of the building. As
with many of the apartments, pelmets and heavy curtains had been added to disguise the
sliding and folding steel windows, and chandeliers and a fake fireplace had been introduced to
soften the clean modern lines of the rooms. However, most of the original features did remain
intact, including steel-framed doors,
custom-made door handles, built-in cupboards, ceramic
tiles and cork flooring. Another revolutionary attribute of the building, which continues to be
operational to this day, is the under-floor and ceiling heating. All of these original features are
now protected by the Grade One Listed status of the building. An un-missable feature that Linda
has added to the apartment seems strangely at home with the Lubetkin design—an enormous
back-lit photograph of a Serge Chermayeff building, which fills an entire wall of the living space.
Another pioneer of modern architecture, Chermayeff is best know in Britain for his collaboration
with Eric Mendelsohn on the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea.
‘I think we’ve gone backwards’, says Linda, comparing the revolutionary spatial arrangements of
early modern buildings like Highpoint with most contemporary architecture. She remarks that in
spite of many people’s expectations, the compact, three-bedroom apartment is comfortable for
her and her two sons due to its ingenious design. Moreover, with large shared gardens and a
swimming pool, the building provides the closest approximation of a New Zealand environment
that she can think of anywhere in London. The fact that her Highpoint apartment is drenched in
sunlight during the short days of the English winter—at least by comparison to the terraced
housing that dominates most of London—supports this observation.
Built-in washing chutes and service lifts to each apartment, and communal spaces on the
ground floor indicate an ambition for a shared lifestyle born of the architect’s socialist ideology.
The presence of maids’ quarters on the ground floor, however, suggests that these ambitions
were interpreted through a bourgeois conception of this ideal, and the present occupation of the
building in discreet dwellings belies this original aspiration. However, the growing population of
architects, designers and architecturally aware inhabitants of the building has created a new
sense of community at Highpoint. As Linda describes how she and several of her neighbours
have discussed converting a small, unused ground-floor space into a communal library, it
seems that Lubetkin’s social agenda for the building may yet be fulfilled.
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