Highpoint: Modernism for the Middle Class

Highgate’s Highpoint proves that in London, even modernist utopias have a waiting list and a price tag for the middle class.

One of the most striking examples of London’s architectural history, and a recurring point of critical reflection in Edward Jones and Christopher Woodward’s Guide to the Architecture of London, is Highpoint in Highgate. Designed by Berthold Lubetkin and completed between 1935 and 1938, the building stands as both a monument to modernist ambition and a touchstone for debates about the role of social housing and urban planning in the capital.

Jones and Woodward’s evaluation of Highpoint captures the tension inherent in London’s twentieth-century architecture. They describe it as confirming “the idea that this particular model of living can be successful when inhabited by the middle-class intelligentsia, but … it can be a wholesale prescription neither for the welfare state nor for the renewal of the traditional city as the 20th century disastrously demonstrated.” In other words, Highpoint is architecturally brilliant and socially appealing in a specific context, yet it cannot be generalised as a model for the entire city. The building’s elegance, clarity, and rationalist design reveal the promise of modernist architecture, yet the authors imply that broader social ambitions - rebuilding London in a modernist idiom for the welfare state - were destined to fail.

Highpoint also exemplifies the authors’ larger scepticism of modernist housing projects, especially those that moved away from traditional street-facing terraces toward inward-facing courtyards. Such design choices, while aesthetically innovative, were seen by Jones and Woodward as “disastrous” when replicated across the city. Yet Highpoint emerges as a nuanced exception: it is both a demonstration of modernist ideals and a symbol of the limits of these ideals when divorced from the historical, social, and spatial fabric of London. It is one of the few projects that show modern architecture can consolidate the city rather than disrupt it.

The broader context of the authors’ writing is important. By the early 1980s, they were reflecting on their own careers and the trajectory of London’s architecture. Highpoint serves as a focal point in this narrative because it embodies the intersection of ambition, aesthetics, and social experiment that defined the period. While Jones and Woodward often lament the failures of modernist urban planning elsewhere - whether in postwar public housing or in large-scale redevelopment schemes - they recognise that Highpoint’s success rests in its careful attention to proportion, communal spaces, and visual elegance. The building’s continuing appeal demonstrates that modernist architecture need not be wholly dystopian, a rare instance where modernism and livability align.

Highgate itself, with its relatively low-density, village-like character, amplifies Highpoint’s impact. Set against the historic streets and terraces of North London, the building’s verticality, clean lines, and rationalist aesthetic stand out without overwhelming its surroundings - a balance rarely achieved in later modernist projects. Jones and Woodward’s critique, then, is not of Lubetkin’s vision here but of the misapplication of similar principles elsewhere. Highpoint becomes a lens through which to view the successes and failures of London’s twentieth-century architectural ambitions.

Ultimately, centring Highpoint allows us to reconsider London’s architectural narrative: it is a site where modernist ideals were tested, partially realised, and critically assessed. Through this single building, the authors explore themes that echo throughout their Guide: the tension between aesthetic innovation and social utility, the limits of architectural prescription, and the continuing relevance of rationalist planning in a city often accused of chaos. Highpoint is, in a sense, a rare victory for modernism in London - a reminder that, under the right circumstances, innovation, elegance, and human-scale design can coexist.

Reference: Hatherley, O. (2014). London Review of Books. [online] London Review of Books. Available at: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n16/owen-hatherley/serried-yuppiedromes?