Highpoint One and Two: Berthold Lubetkin’s Architecture of Transformation

Thomas Diehl, University of Houston. Originally published as a scholarly study of Berthold Lubetkin’s architectural philosophy, this article examines how Highpoint One and Highpoint Two (London, 1930s) express the tension between social idealism and aesthetic transformation within modern architecture.

Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1425413. 

In the 1930s, Berthold Lubetkin, a Russian-born architect working in London, emerged as one of modern architecture’s most visionary figures. Deeply influenced by socialist ideals and modernist optimism, Lubetkin believed that architecture could transform society - that design, guided by reason and imagination, could shape a more enlightened future.

When he and his firm Tecton were commissioned to create new housing in Highgate, the result was Highpoint One (1935), a striking embodiment of the modernist faith in progress. The building’s clean geometry, open courtyards, and emphasis on light and air represented not only an architectural solution to urban living but also an ideological statement. It expressed confidence in rational planning and in architecture’s power to promote social betterment.

Only three years later, Highpoint Two (1938) stood beside it - physically close but philosophically distinct. This second building was conceived in a more reflective spirit, responding to what Lubetkin saw as the growing aesthetic emptiness of functionalism. While Highpoint One had celebrated the clarity of modern ideals, Highpoint Two questioned their limits. Lubetkin introduced expressive details such as the caryatids at the entrance, gestures that reconnected architecture with symbolic meaning and historical continuity.

For Lubetkin, these two buildings formed a dialectical pair - not opposites, but stages in an evolving argument about architecture’s role in society. He sought a balance between transformation and continuity, between the utopian drive to reinvent the world and the human need for cultural connection. His training in Russia, exposure to the avant-garde in Europe, and grounding in Marxist dialectics all shaped this belief that design must engage with history rather than erase it.

The two Highpoints thus became more than housing projects; they were philosophical experiments. Highpoint One stood for the faith in modern progress - the “message for the future” - while Highpoint Two reintroduced emotion, symbolism, and neighbourliness as correctives to modernism’s abstraction. Together, they reflect Lubetkin’s conviction that architecture must not merely serve function but must also speak to the social and moral consciousness of its time.

Ultimately, these buildings capture a moment of idealism before World War II, when architects like Lubetkin imagined that new forms could create a new society. Their enduring presence in Highgate reminds us of that ambition - to build not just for shelter, but for the transformation of the human spirit.

Analysis and Review:

Thomas Diehl’s study presents Lubetkin as both innovator and critic of modernism. Through Highpoint One and Highpoint Two, Diehl reveals a dialogue between progress and permanence, theory and reality. He interprets the two as a dialectical ensemble - architectural counterparts that together expose the challenges of merging social purpose with artistic evolution. Diehl concludes that Lubetkin’s work stands as a lasting meditation on modern architecture’s central question: how can design continually transform the world without losing the continuity that gives it meaning?