“He … very soon became identified with the international modern movement that was drawing the most talented of the younger generation of British architects into its orbit” The Times, 21st August 1982
In 1937, at the age of 30, A V Pilichowski’s work was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York entitled ‘Modern Architecture in England’. Alongside his designs for Highfield Court, Whittinghame College and Earl’s Terrace flats in Edwardes Square, Kensington, were the works of some of Modernism’s most illustrious names: Walter Gropius, formerly Director of the Bauhaus school, former Bauhaus teacher Marcel Breuer, Serge Chermayeff, L. Moholy-Nagy, Wells Coates, Maxwell Fry, Frederick Gibberd, Valentine Harding, Lindsey Drake and F.R.S Yorke among others.
In this mix of immigrant and English-born talent, Pilley had a foot in both camps. Born in France to Polish Jewish parents, he arrived in England with his three siblings around 1913 when he was just six years old. So, unlike many of his modernist contemporaries who fled Nazi Europe in the 1930s, he was educated in England, naturalised as a British subject and established with his artistic family well before he started his architectural career.
His family settled at 7, Hill Road, St John’s Wood, an address which became not only his parents’ studio but something of a ‘salon’ and meeting place for the Jewish intelligentsia of the day, with visits from Einstein among others. His mother Lena (‘Madame Pillico’ 1884-1947) was an artist and fabric designer described as ‘in the modern spirit’ and was one of the first women to exhibit with the Seven and Five Society between 1923 and 1927, during which time the group was inviting artists with more modern and abstract styles into the group. His twin sister, Thea Doniach, was also an artist of international repute who studied at St Martins School of Art and Goldsmiths’ College, London.
Pilley was friendly with Britain’s leading Modernist architect, Berthold Lubetkin. According to architect and Lubetkin biographer John Allan, Pilley and Lubetkin met through Lubetkin’s Polish friend Gregory Sigalin when Lubetkin moved to London from Paris: Pilley helped make a model of a house in Hampstead that Lubetkin was designing for his friends Ralph and Manya Harrari (co-founder of Harvill Press and incidentally the first person to translate Dr Zhivago into English).
Pilley studied at the Architectural Association School in London in the early 1930s when it became the first overtly modernist architecture school in Britain. ‘Rejecting ornament and embracing minimalism, Modernism … was associated with an analytical approach to the function of buildings, a strictly rational use of (often new) materials, structural innovation and the elimination of ornament. It was also known as International Modernism or International Style …’ (RIBA)
With such a background it comes as no surprise that Pilley’s style and interests focused strongly on Modernism and innovation. The Highfield Court flats in Golders Green are uncompromisingly Modernist in style and construction and feature in F.R.S. York and Gibberd’s influential 1937 survey ‘The Modern Flat’. Pilley pioneered the use of imprinted board marks on the concrete walls to help channel rain water off and avoid weather streaking. He also arranged the rooms around a ‘lounge hall’, a square-shaped interior room that assisted air circulation and even a small grouping of furniture (see below). Inside, the flats included extensive use of furniture and fittings designed by Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto, at the time a follower of the International Style, the latest trend in Modernism.
Of another early commission, Whittinghame College (now sadly demolished) a history of the school says ‘the Head was certainly nailing his colours to the modernist mast, for the new building was a fine representative of the most up-to-date architectural fashion in 1936, the so-called ‘International Style’. (See p.52 of the Architecture Illustrated article, with photos).
Pilley appears to have stayed close to his international Modernist roots throughout his career. Nearly two decades after his work was showcased in the New York MoMA exhibition ‘Modern Architecture in England’, in 1955 he was once again alongside Walter Gropius in an exhibition of Groupe Espace ‘… an international association of modern architects and non-figurative artists … founded in Paris in 1951.’
Voltaire fits firmly in this narrative. Completed in 1963, making it contemporary with buildings such as Coventry Cathedral and the Brutalist Balfron Tower in Tower Hamlets, it nevertheless looks back to Modernism with its clean, simple lines and the elegance of its curve. Our square, jutting concrete balconies with their black metal rails suggest a Bauhaus look and our interiors include the ‘lounge hall’ Pilley first introduced at Highfield Court.
Perhaps the interiors featured Alvar Aalto-designed furniture: it would be interesting to know!
If you can tell us more about Vivien Pilley or answer any of the questions raised on this website, do please get in touch by emailing archivist@voltaire.london.