Main entry:

Burke, David (Historian of intelligence and international relations)

Title & Author:

The Lawn Road Flats : spies, writers and artists / David Burke.

Publication:

Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK ; Rochester, NY : The Boydell Press, 2014.

Description:

xx, 271 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Series:

History of British intelligence; v. 3

Notes:
Includes chapter notes (pages [226]-253), bibliographical references (pages [255]-261), and index.
Foreword / Christopher Andrew -- Prologue -- Remembrance of things past ; Hampstead man among 'The Modernists' -- National planning for the future and the arrival of Walter Gropius -- 1935 : 'Art crystallises the emotions of an age.' : musicology and the art of espionage -- Arnold Deutsch, Kim Philby and Austro-Marxism -- The Isobar, Half-Hundred Club and the arrival of Sonya -- The plot thickens : Jurgen Kuczynski, Agatha Christie and Colletts Bookshop -- Refugees, the Kuczynski network, Churchill and Operation Barbarossa -- Klaus Fuchs, Rothstein once more, and Charles Brasch -- Vere Gordon Childe -- "The New Statesman," Ho Chi Minh and the end of an era -- Epilogue.
Current Copyright Fee: GBP17.50 0.

Summary:

The Isokon building, Lawn Road Flats, in Belsize Park on Hampstead's lower slopes, is a remarkable building. The first modernist building in Britain to use reinforced concrete and architecture, its construction demanded new building techniques. But the building was as remarkable for those who took up residence there as for the application of revolutionary building techniques. There were 32 Flats in all, and they became a haunt of some of the most prominent Soviet agents working against Britain in the 1930s and 40s. A number of British artists were also drawn to the Flats, among them the sculptor and painter Henry Moore; the novelist Nicholas Monsarrat; and the crime writer Agatha Christie, who wrote her only spy novel N or M? in the Flats. The Isokon building boasted its own restaurant and dining club, where many of the Flats' most famous residents rubbed shoulders with some of the most dangerous communist spies ever to operate in Britain. Agatha Christie often said that she invented her characters from what she observed going on around her. With the Kuczynskis - probably the most successful family of spies in the history of espionage - in residence, she would have had plenty of material.

ISBN:

9781843837831 (hbk.)
1843837838 (hbk.)

Subject:

Isokon Building (London, England) History 20th century.
Isokon Building (London, England)
Espionage, Soviet Great Britain History 20th century.
Spies Homes and haunts England London History 20th century.
Artists Homes and haunts England London History 20th century.
Literary landmarks England London History 20th century.
Spies Great Britain History 20th century.
Spies Great Britain Biography.
Artists Biography.
Authors Biography.
Espionnage soviétique Grande-Bretagne Histoire 20e siècle.
Espions Résidences et lieux familiers Angleterre Londres Histoire 20e siècle.
Artistes Résidences et lieux familiers Angleterre Londres Histoire 20e siècle.
Écrivains Résidences et lieux familiers Angleterre Londres Histoire 20e siècle.
Espions Grande-Bretagne Histoire 20e siècle.
Espions Grande-Bretagne Biographies.
Artistes Biographies.
Écrivains Biographies.
Artists
Artists Homes and haunts
Authors
Espionage, Soviet
Literary landmarks
Spies
Kollektivhus.
Spioner.
Konstnärer.
Författare.
Sovjetiskt spionage.
England London
Great Britain

Form/genre:

Biography.
Biographies
History

Added entries:

History of British intelligence ; v. 3.

Spies, writers and artists

Holdings:

Location: Library main 286903
Call No.: BIB 227453
Status: Available