Kate Macintosh Explained

Kate Macintosh
Birth Name:Catherine Ailsa Macintosh
Birth Place:Edinburgh
Nationality:Scottish
Alma Mater:Edinburgh College of Art
Partner:George Finch
Awards:Royal Institute of British Architects award,Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)
Practice:London Borough of Southwark, London Borough of Lambeth

Catherine Ailsa "Kate" Macintosh MBE (born 1937) is a Scottish architect known for her work for local authorities. She designed Dawson's Heights in Southwark and 269 Leigham Court Road, a Grade II listed building in Lambeth.[1]

Career

Macintosh was raised in Edinburgh. She studied at the Edinburgh College of Art, now part of the University of Edinburgh. After graduating in 1961, she spent a year studying in Warsaw on a scholarship from the British Council, then worked in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki before returning to the United Kingdom in 1964. Macintosh briefly worked under Sir Denys Lasdun on early designs for the National Theatre in London.[2] She left the project soon afterwards in 1965 to work for local authorities in Southwark, designing public buildings.[3] There, she designed the Dawson's Heights social housing estate in Dulwich, a project which was described in The Observer as "one of the most remarkable housing developments in the country".[2]

In 1968, Macintosh left Southwark to work for the Lambeth architecture department, where she designed a sheltered housing facility for the elderly, 269 Leigham Court Road. The complex was described at the time as "the London Borough of Lambeth's first wholly metric dwellings", while The Guardian dubbed it decades later "a modernist gem".

She went on to work for the counties of East Sussex and Hampshire, working on public buildings that included sheltered housing, schools and fire services. These included Halton Hastings, Fire Training HQ Maresfield (East Sussex) and Rushmoor Fire Station (Hampshire). Later, she went on to work in private practice with her life-partner and fellow architect, George Finch.

Macintosh won a Royal Institute of British Architects award in 2005 for her design of a playground in Weston, Southampton, designed in partnership with George Finch, within the practice, Finch Macintosh Architects .[4]

In 2012, the Twentieth Century Society campaigned for Dawson's Heights to be designated as a listed building, but the recommendation was unsuccessful.[5] A similar campaign in 2015 to have 269 Leigham Court Road listed by Historic England as a Grade II building was successful. In June 2016, it was renamed Macintosh Court in honour of its architect.[6]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: No. 269 Leigham Court Road and associated patios, paved surfaces and walls. Historic England. 12 October 2015 .
  2. News: Kate Macintosh: one of Britain's great unsung architects of social housing. The Observer. Rowan. Moore. 21 June 2015. 12 October 2015.
  3. News: The battle to save Lambeth's modernist sheltered housing . The Guardian. Oliver. Wainwright. 18 April 2014. 12 October 2015.
  4. News: George Finch obituary . 28 February 2013. The Guardian. Elain. Harwood. 12 October 2015.
  5. Web site: Listing 'saves' Kate Macintosh sheltered housing. 3 June 2015. Elizabeth. Hopkirk. Building Design. 12 October 2015.
  6. News: An Architect's View . Inside Housing. Kate. Youde. 2 November 2018. 5 December 2019.