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Finsbury Health Centre, Architect, Architecture, News, Refurbishment, Sale, Photo
Finsbury Health Centre : Berthold Lubetkin
Islington Building by Berthold Lubetkin, north London, England
Finsbury Health Centre, Pine Street, northeast London
1938
Berthold Lubetkin Architect
Status : Grade I
Finsbury Health Centre Building News
Islington Council due to meet 1 Mar 2010 to decide the fate of this
Berthold Lubetkin building.
Berthold Lubetkins daughter Sasha made an impassioned plea on
1 Feb 2010 for the retention and refurbishment of Finsbury Health
Centre to the Health and Wellbeing Review Committee. Of all the buildings
Lubetkin designed, she said, Finsbury Health Centre was his favourite.
Save Finsbury Health Centre
Decision by Health Secretary Alan Johnson : Islington Primary Care
Trust asked to reappraise selling the building and investigate ways
to keep it open, involving local stakeholders.
This good news follows recommendations made by the Secretary of States
Independent Reconfiguration Panel. This website fully supports the
campaign to keep the building open, well-maintained and properly connected
to local people.
Finsbury Health Centre Sale
Islington Council voted unanimously to refer the proposed sale of
Berthold Lubetkins Finsbury Health Centre to health secretary
Alan Johnson
13 Feb 2009
Islington Primary Care Trust to sell Berthold Lubetkin's Finsbury
Health Centre due to the large cost of refurbishment.
29 Jan 2009

Link to the Campaign to save this celebrated Modern building at the
base of this page
FINSBURY HEALTH CENTRE, Pine Street, London EC1
Notes © John Allan, Avanti Architects, Jan 2009
Finsbury Health Centre Building
ORIGINS
Finsbury Health Centre was commissioned by the Indian doctor Chuni
Katial on behalf of the Public Health Committee of the former Metropolitan
Borough Council of Finsbury and designed by the architectural partnership
Tecton under the leadership of the Russian architect Berthold Lubetkin.
It was opened by the Kings Physician Lord Horder in October
1938 and has remained in operation ever since. It offered a wide variety
of health services to the people of Finsbury and was designed to be
adaptable to new requirements as healthcare priorities developed and
changed. It is one of the most significant achievements of the early
Modern Movement in Britain, bringing together for the first time in
a municipal building its social commitment, its architectural ideals
and its technical innovation. It anticipated the foundation of the
NHS by a clear decade and was acclaimed as a model of coordinated
public health service provision in a radical building type. It is
now listed Grade I.
BUILDING DESIGN
The building is designed in the form of a letter H with arrival, reception,
a lecture theatre and core services in the central section, and flexibly
planned clinical accommodation in the two wings. The building form
creates an entrance garden through which ramped access is provided
to the main entrance in the centre of the plan. The full floorplate
extends over ground and first floors, with a partial lower ground
floor, accessed independently from the rear via a vehicular service
courtyard. Parking spaces are ranged along the Pine Street frontage.
The building structure consists of reinforced concrete frame, with
glass block and curtain wall infill, tiled wall surrounds and an asphalt
roof.
REPAIR AND REFURBISHMENT
After seven decades in use the building has been altered (slightly)
and has deteriorated from ongoing lack of maintenance. The first systematic
(albeit partial) project to restore the building fabric authentically
was commissioned by Islington Health Authority and carried out under
the direction of Avanti Architects in 1994. The works included re-roofing,
concrete repair, window repair and replacement, renovation of the
curtain wall and retiling of one wing, reinstatement of original colours
and renewal of the trompe loeil metal entrance sign. This project
provides the model for full refurbishment of the remainder of the
building envelope when funds become available.
CURRENT STATUS
The local health authority is now seeking to dispose of the centre
and relocate the various services it provides to other areas within
the borough, including a new building yet to be built. This is in
spite of the clear wishes of the local community who is deeply committed
to the building, appreciate its unique significance and depend on
its services being provided from the current location.
No significant work is believed to have been undertaken since the
partial refurbishment project of the mid 1990s, but the building remains
entirely capable of restoration and upgrade. Its layout, form and
historical ethos all embody the ideals of public service and this,
coupled with undiminished local need, all point to the retention of
this building in the use for which it was designed. But there is also
scope for adaptation despite its listed status, provided this is sympathetically
conceived. If, as is being suggested, the necessary funds are not
currently available, then more determined efforts are needed to establish
them. The unfavourable comparisons being made between the costs of
retention and the redistribution of services and new building appear
inconclusive at best.
MY INTEREST
I feel a particularly close association with this building, both on
account of Avantis earlier restoration project of the mid 1990s,
which itself derived from a survey we undertook in 1988 marking its
50th anniversary, and also through my connection with the original
architect, Berthold Lubetkin, whose biography I published in 1992.
I remain wholly committed to the belief that Finsbury Health Centre
has a viable and vital future and that a new project is demanded that
is worthy of this unique building which was a pioneering icon on completion
and is still widely loved and internationally admired today.
CONTACT DETAILS
John Allan, Avanti Architects Ltd, 361-373 City Road, London EC1V
1AS
Tel. 020 7 278 3060 Fax. 020 7 278 3366
ja@avantiarchitects.co.uk www.avantiarchitects.co.uk
Finsbury Health Centre Refurbishment
1994
Avanti Architects
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