HIGHGATE NEW TOWN PHASE 1, CAMDEN Community-led Conservation Guidance for inclusion in the Dartmouth Park Conservation Area and Application for Grade II* Listing

the UK, Europe and Scandinavia and further afield to individuals such as Kenzo Tange in Japan,
working towards the needs of the anonymous client (the resident community) and the idea of an
‘open society’ in which;
“Each man’s attitude towards life will strongly be defined on by the balance of these new rights
and responsibilities and vice-versa. The expression (gestaltung) of this attitude could nowhere
be manifested so clearly as in our cities.” [With this] “Our urban districts could surprise and
stimulate again if only the hidden potential of our new social structure (the open society) were to be
expressed by building for the anonymous client.” (BPH Newsletter 27 th January 1961 in Ibid. 71).
1.3.5 HNT along with the other Camden projects built under Sydney Cook (1965-73) can be seen as
belonging to this school of thought, with its focus on provision for the anonymous client and in the
words of contemporary Dutch architect John Habraken in Supports: An Alternative to Mass Housing
(1972) trying “to make provision for what cannot be foreseen” by “creating the rules for a game
designed to make creativity possible.” (Cupers 2016: 173).
1.3.6 The hill-town influence, through Tábori’s relationship with architect Richard Rogers, is in the use
of external stairs and circulation, rich arrangements of public-routes, entrances with gantries and
parapets, spaces and greens achieving the hill-town’s sense of intimacy helped by paired entrances
and shared amenities and the visual connections between street, home and surrounding area. This
extends to the axial layout of HNT, which can be traced all the way back to pre-Roman Etruscan
planning, which determined the layout of many of the hill-towns studied by Tábori. Notable details
here are the axial relationship and use of squares for community-focus and the diagonal cut-through
which relates back to the Etruscan’s belief that their God Tin’s gaze cleaved the town in two halves
(Barbacci 1989: 6-13).
1.3.7 Through this personal connection with Richard (Tábori’s tutor in the early ‘60s) and Su Rogers
HNT’s design draws on unrealised housing schemes and individual houses developed by the
Rogers at Team 4, notably Coulsdon, Surrey and Pill Creek, Cornwall (Appleyard 1996 & Powell
1999). This connection extends to Serge Chermayeff who had a significant influence on the Rogers’
when they studied at Yale in 1961-62. The attention to detail and technical precision, seen in
environmental thermal and air regulation (see 4.6), finds parallels in Rogers’ and Team 4’s work and
through the Yale connection can be traced back to architects such as Paul Rudolph (head of Yale
architecture school in 1961-62), Raphael Soriano and Charles and Ray Eames. Other personal
connections include Ernö Goldfinger who mentored Tábori and Denys Lasdun whom Tábori worked
for subsequently (Swenarton 2017: 113). Technical and engineering expertise is drawn both from
Ernö Goldfinger and Tábori’s time at Denys Lasdun & Partners (DLP), where he worked on the
Ziggurat halls of residence at the University of East Anglia. This technical expertise is apparent in
concreting techniques and technical solutions.
1.3.8 This diverse range of influences and experience is drawn together at HNT into a cohesive and
original scheme, countering the earlier assumption that Tábori drew only from colleague Neave
Brown’s work at Alexandra Road (English Heritage 2006). Whilst Tábori worked closely with and
was influenced by Brown, Brown formed an important part of Tábori’s diverse influences and
experience, rather than being exclusive. One measure of Brown’s influence on Tábori’s decision
to move to Camden from DLP, was determined that by the fact that Brown was already there
(Swenarton 2017: 110).
1.3.9 Common to Brown, Tábori and others at Camden, is Chermayeff and Christopher Alexander’s 1963
publication Community and Privacy: towards an architecture of humanity, which sought to achieve
“both privacy and the true advantages of living in a community [through] an entirely new anatomy
of urbanism…. built of many hierarchies of clearly articulated domains” (Chermayeff & Alexander
1963: 37). This should establish “A new physical order needed to give expression and meaning to
the life of ‘urbanising’ man, to clarify, to define, to give integrity to human purposes and organisation,
and finally, to give these form” (Ibid. 34) The methodology centres around a system of locks in the
form of transitional spaces and rooms, moving from Urban public to Individual Private, which they
define as “The ‘room of one’s own’ the inner-most sanctum to which individuals may withdraw from
their family.” (Chermayeff & Alexander 1963: 121-122). They conclude that “Only when the habitat
of urbanising man is given such an order shall we perhaps restore to urban life a fruitful balance
between community and privacy” (Ibid. 37).
1.3.10 Returning to Camden, Neave Brown’s 1967 article the ‘Form of Housing’ provides his account
of “how concepts of street, neighbourliness and continuity re-appeared, in project form in the
Smithsons’ Golden Lane and in fact at Park Hill”. He describes how;
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