An English Heritage blue plaque honouring the Bauhaus artists Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy was unveiled today (9 July) on London’s Isokon building in Belsize Park, where the artists lived and worked in the mid-1930s after fleeing mainland Europe and the rise of Nazism. The plaque recognises their “significant contribution to the fields of art, architecture and design”, says Kate Mavor, the chief executive of the English Heritage charity.
Howard Spencer, the senior historian of the blue plaques scheme, says “it seems very appropriate to honour these three Bauhaus design pioneers at the Isokon”. Then known as the Lawn Road Flats, the communal apartment block opened in 1934 was designed by the British architect and fellow blue plaque recipient Well Coates as a bohemian experiment in urban living. It was granted Grade I status in 1974 and now serves as a permanent exhibition space telling the history of the building and its illustrious past residents, such as Agatha Christie, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Nicholas Monsarrat and Naum Slutzky.
Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy are the latest blue plaque recipients English Heritage
John Allan, the chairman the Isokon Gallery Trust, adds that the new plaque “marks a significant milestone not only in celebrating these three giants of Modernism, but only giving further recognition to the building that was briefly their home and refuge”.