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Wells Coates was a leading light of British modernism. Born in Japan in 1895, he spent his early life in the Far East, studied engineering in Canada and England and began his career as an architect in London in 1928. His most important buildings were built in Britain in the thirties: Embassy Court in Brighton and Lawn Road Flats in Hampstead, London are the most famous. Coates' final years were spent back in Canada, where he died in 1958. Wells was an idealist who believed passionately in "an architectural solution of the social and economic problems of today", and "a Future that must be planned rather than a Past that must be patched up, at all costs….". Coates saw it as his duty to formulate clearly what kind of buildings modern architects should be producing and his designs of flats, shops, offices, houses, interiors, radios, boats and more are evidence of his commitment to a functional aesthetic and a refusal to compromise his own exacting standards. Wells was a pioneer of industrial design because he demonstrated the importance of understanding technical processes in order to design competently. His insistence on developing prefabrication and industrial methods put him in the ranks of all those modern architects for whom architecture and planning became above all a social goal. His importance lies in the timeless value of his designs and his application of fundamental principles of design, which never change. It also lies in the inestimable help he gave in persuading manufacturers, the public and the establishment that good design in industry pays.
Wells Wintemute Coates was born in Japan in 1895, the eldest son of Canadian Methodist missionaries. His mother Agnes Wintemute was an early influence on his designs; she had studied architecture under Louis Sullivan and planned (as well as taught in) one of the first missionary schools in Japan.
At the age of seventeen he embarked on a world cruise with his father and tutor, GEL Gauntlet (who besides academic tuition, had taught him paper making and printing, spinning, weaving and dyeing, boat building, cooking and the ritual of serving food). They travelled to China, Java, Burma and India, Egypt, Europe, eastern USA and Canada. The tour finished in Vancouver where Coates went on to study engineering at the University, completing his BA and BSc degrees after the First World War. (Coates fought with the Second division of Canadian Gunners in the trenches in France and Belgium and later became a fully trained pilot with the RAF). Coates
continued his studies at London University and then during the 1920s
began work as a journalist (Science Correspondent) in Vancouver,
Paris and London (for the Daily Express). He also worked at the
offices of Adams and Thompson (Thomas Adams was a leading town planner)
where he met and befriended the architect Maxwell Fry (link to biog
of Maxwell Fry?). In 1925 he spent several months in Paris where
he reviewed the 'Exposition des Arts Decoratifs' for the Daily Express
and became aware of Le Corbusier's work and his 'Maison Minimum'
(Link to info about Corbusier?) 1928 Coates began his career as an architect when Tom Heron of Cresta Silks commissioned him to design shops in London, Bournmouth , Bromley and Brighton. The work included the CRESTA lettering itself.
D-Handles designed, patented and produced for the Cresta Silks shops are one of the small number of commercially successful Wells Coates inventions, versions of which have become modern sta\ndards.
1931 Conversion of 1 Kensington Palace Gardens Coates was given sufficient money and a free hand to remove the late Victorian fittings and to re-design everything.
In 1931 Coates also designed studios in the BBC's new Broadcasting House in Portland Place
1934 Coates' 'AD 65' circular wireless in bakelite, won a competition run by E.K. Cole Ltd (EKCO). The 'AD 65' became a best seller and began a long and productive relationship with the company.
The
pioneering prefabricated Sunspan house .............................................................................. The
Lawn Road Flats were commissioned by Jack and Molly Pritchard. Originally
called the Isokon Flats, this block of flats in Hampstead, north
London, remains his best-known building (as well as his first).
1935 18 Yeoman's Row
Images from 'A Catalogue of Design Influences', California State University, Northridge. The studio flat completed. Its design aimed to squeeze the greatest possible utility and comfort out of the smallest possible dimensions. Coates lived here until 1955. 1936 Embassy Court completed - the country's first penthouse block of flats was built on the seafront in Brighton.
The design allowed all the living rooms and principal bedrooms to have a direct or oblique view of the sea and the flats incorporated electrical equipment, fitted kitchens with built in refrigerators and a range of tubular steel furniture designed by Coates. Visit our Embassy Court page for detailed information about this building or look at the floor plans.
1938
1939 10 Palace Gate. Coates' last block of flats.
Image
from 'Inventions'
page at www.wellscoates.org 1940 Served in the RAF, working on fighter aircraft development for which he was later awarded an OBE 1946 Launched his revolutionary 16-foot 'Wingsail' Catamaran.
1951 Designed the Telekinema for the Festival of Britain 1954 Launched the thirty-foot Fey Loon (Flying Dragon), which featured 'Windsail' rigging.
1931 'Inspiration
from Japan', Architects Journal, November 4, 1931 1932 'Response
to Tradition' Architectural Review, November 1939 'Must we continue to accept the meaningless jumble of styles, the ugliness of contemporary building? Can steel and concrete replace bricks and stone? Can we not perhaps progress from 'ancestor-worship in design' to a more vital tradition?' '...As young men, we are concerned with a Future which must be planned, rather than a Past which must be patched up, at all costs.' 'It
is for architects to invent, and to exhibit, a new architecture
which will quite naturally be accepted and demanded by the people.' 1933 UNIT
ONE MARS
formed In 1925 Wells met Marion Grove, a student at the London School of Economics. Born in China where her father built railways, she was emancipated, very left wing, beautiful, daring and 'modern' in the style of the 1920's. The following year they parted and Wells embarked on a soul-searching journey to British Columbia in Canada with his friend Alfred Borgeaud. The journey ended prematurely and dramatically when tragically Borgeaud was killed falling from a freight train. Back in England Marion contacted him by letter; they were reconciled and in August 1927 they married. A happy time followed, socialising with fashionable writers, publishers and artists. Their daughter Laura was born in 1930.
In
later years Coates became dependent on the written relationship
he and his daughter Laura Cohn enjoyed. She recently published much
material from his letters in her biography, The Door to a Secret
Room. See our Shop for details, ordering
information and price. Uncompleted Work and Final Years 1947 Room
Unit Production (RUP)
Images from Simon Allford's online essay, 'This was Tomorrow' 'Room Units will arrive [from the factory] complete to the last light switch; two matching halves will be joined by a LINK UNIT composed of simple panels, and the job is done. Each Room Unit is completely rendered and weatherproofed externally, and the only other site operation is connecting the site mains to the service outlets and inlets provided in each Unit.' The vision was that dwellings could be 'ordered off the shelf' and added to or moved over the years if required. Sadly, Room Units were never built. 1952-1954 Iroquois
New Town (INT) 1955 and 1956 Taught at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard in Cambridge, Mass. with Walter Gropius. Although he enjoyed the financial stability this brought, he was uneasy working in the American academic environment and in 1956 finally settled in Vancouver. 1956-1958 Project
58 1957-1958 Monospan
Twin-Ride System (MTRS) - Vancouver Weakened by a string of stresses, angers and frustrations, Coates had a major heart attack in 1957. In the months that followed his weak state was worsened by financial worries. His death by heart attack happened in 1958 on a beach in Vancouver where he took pictures of a sailing schooner from Japan and bathed and picnicked with friends. Coates was fond of quoting Santayana: 'The
visible world offers itself to our regard with a certain lazy indifference...Peruse
me, it seems to say...If you come to me, I am here; and even if
you pass me by now, and later find it to your advantage to re-survey
me, I may still be here.' |
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Coates
often spoke about Japanese life, architecture and the profound effect
it had on him and his work. Addressing architectural students in
Vancouver in 1957 he told them: "I have never been to a school
of Architecture. Indeed, I have never been to school at all for
I was born in the Far East, in Japan, where no such facilities existed,
and my own course was directed by private teachers; a French governess,
a Japanese painting master, a Japanese architect-builder who taught
the skills of shaping materials into elements of structure, and
the arts of regulation of dimensions pleasing to the eye and the
mind…."
Marion
and Laura moved to Amberley in Sussex. Although he intended to commute
to London and also Brighton where one of the Cresta shops was being
opened, Wells became busier and busier with work, including establishing
his relationship with Serge and Barbara Chermayeff, Jack Pritchard
and the BBC, and as a result spent more and more time away from
his young family. In 1935 a deed of separation was drawn up. On
the work front, opportunities also seemed to dry up for Coates.
Two years later Laura contracted double pneumonia and bronchitis
and Marion and Wells decided to rebuild their marriage. However
the reunion lasted less than a month and Marion eventually left
Laura and Wells.
