Brutally Honest
To know London is to embrace contradiction.
London is a city where Beaux-Arts facades brush up against modernist glass, and high-rise towers sprout like vertical weeds amid Georgian terraces. Perhaps nowhere is this architectural tension more visceral than in its Brutalist legacy: buildings cast in concrete, built with honest conviction, and often misunderstood. These grey monoliths, unapologetically raw, continue to provoke, inspire, and endure.
Post-war London stood at a crossroads, in need of reinvention - urgently and ambitiously. The optimism of the welfare state gave rise to a new architectural vernacular: honest, functional, emphatically modern. Inspired by Le Corbusier and shaped by post-war pragmatism, architects such as Ernő Goldfinger, Denys Lasdun, and Alison and Peter Smithson imagined a new way of living. It would be democratic, efficient and, yes beautiful, if one could find beauty in structure and purpose alone. Brutalism may not always meet the classical criteria of beauty. But it is honest. And in an age that often favours gloss over substance, that may be its most enduring strength.
Stoneleigh Terrace: Geometry, Grace, and Quiet Resolve
This spring, we chose to photograph our seasonal collection at Stoneleigh Terrace - part of Peter Tábori’s Whittington Estate in Highgate. Unlike more imposing Brutalist landmarks, Stoneleigh has a humility we find compelling. Its terraced homes step carefully down the hill, each one with access to green space, sunlight, and breath.
We were drawn to the way it holds the tension between precision and gentleness - how the architecture is unapologetically modern yet deeply human. The brushed concrete, softened by decades of weather and life, offered the perfect backdrop: unshowy, storied, and generous. It reflects the values we design by- pieces that are quietly luxurious, intentionally made, and built to accompany a life well lived.
We were joined on location by London-based artist Kanto Ohara Maeda, whose evocative pen-and-ink works document not just place but presence. His drawings of Stoneleigh are featured here, along with reflections that reveal his deeper engagement with the estate.
“Sketching for me is a way to observe and connect with a place,” Kanto explains. “The drawing becomes as much a storage of memory—the sounds I hear while I draw, the coldness on my skin, the people I talk to—as it is a representation of how the place has been observed. When I look back at my sketches, I remember so many things that are not recorded on the page, but are still part of the drawing.”
Drawn to Stoneleigh’s legacy as social housing from the so-called ‘golden era’ of Camden’s public housing in the late 1970s, Kanto was intrigued by its history and geometric design. “Although rather unusual and austere looking,” he explains, “the residences are carefully designed with the functionality of the interior spaces in mind, allowing all residents to have their own balcony and front door, while also being very deeply proportioned to allow sunlight to travel into the whole home.
What struck him most when I was there was how alive the estate felt. “Several residents on Whittington Estate took interest in what I was sketching,” he mentions. “A little boy brought me a can of soda, telling me his brother had sent it—who I could see in the distance giving me a thumbs-up from his front door. I was even invited inside a home by a kind and rather exuberant lady, proud to show off the architecture of her house.”
These moments of hospitality and curiosity brought the built environment to life in an entirely human way. “Standing still in a place just to draw allowed me to become somewhat part of the environment,” he says. “The lines on the page tell their own story too—when my pen ran out of ink, I switched to a fatter one, which completely freed up the drawing. I can still tell which marks were made when my hands were too cold to keep sketching in detail.”
That spirit—of thoughtfulness, of design that serves life—is what drew us to Stoneleigh in the first place. The weather-softened concrete offered a backdrop that was unshowy, storied, and generous. In a way, Stoneleigh reminds us of something easy to forget: that beauty can be democratic. That thoughtful design doesn't have to shout. That a well-placed window, like a well-cut coat, can elevate the everyday. There’s a quiet integrity to these buildings that reflects our values: respect for material, clarity of form, and a belief in design that stands the test of time.
The Enduring Thread
Brutalism in London doesn’t endure because it pleases. It endures because it was built on conviction. These buildings were born of hope—not glossy or performative, but real hope: that design could shape society. That good housing could be a right, not a luxury. That public buildings could inspire, not intimidate.
In a time where cities are shaped more by spreadsheets than sketches, these concrete monuments feel quietly radical once again. They ask us to slow down, to consider material and intent. To look again.
With gratitude to artist and animator Kanto Ohara Maeda
Imagery @ceciliaavolpi_ph
Location Stoneleigh Terrace, Whittingdon Estate, London Borough of Camden 51° 33′ 50.76″ N, 0° 08′ 39.55