Trevor Dannatt was born in London in 1920 and studied architecture at the Regent Street Polytechnic where he studied, most significantly, under Peter Moro. Moro was an enthusiast for the new ideas emerging from Europe, most notably the writings of Le Corbusier. Young architects in Britain were beginning to shift their views towards Modernism during this period of the late '30s and early '40s and Dannatt was at the forefront of these changes. He worked not only with Moro after studying but also with two other key figures in British Modernism - Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew.

Dannatt's editing of The Architect's Year Book (1948-62) and his input into the 20th Century Form exhibition revealed his interests and influences as an architect as he displayed affinity not only with the works of Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright (as might be expected) but also a particular passion for Scandinavian architecture. Alvar Aalton, Gunnar Asplund and Finn Juhl were all firm favourites as was the great Italian engineer Pier Luigi Nervi. Dannatt was also instrumental in the production of exhibitions of artworks by Modern artists such as Victor Pasmore and Eduardo Paolozzi (both of whom he was good friends with) and, in 1953, an early exhibition of the work of Jackson Pollock. Dannatt's cultural interests not only lay in Modernism however - indeed he recently cited Westminster Cathedral and Christ Church, Spitalfields as well as Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye among his favourite buildings.

Dannatt's career has been long-lasting and illustrious - indeed as recently as last year, he oversaw the design of a large house in Hampshire - but it is perhaps the house at Clarkson Road for which he is best known.

HOUSE AT CLARKSON ROAD

Not only is the house at Clarkson Road perhaps most Dannatt's celebrated design (it's image forms the cover of a recent monograph entitled 'Trevor Dannatt: Works and Words') but it is one that Dannatt himself is perhaps most attached to.

The house was commissioned by the celebrated historian Peter Laslett, who lived in the house until his death in 2001. It is still owned by the Laslett family today. Dannatt and Laslett remained good friends throughout the latter's life and Dannatt recently wrote that "rarely has an architect had a building so well looked after and such a happy relationship with clients who turned into friends".

Dannatt also wrote that it was Laslett's intention, in the mid 1950s, for the house to "make a statement of the 'modern' in the then stuffy architectural climate of Cambridge".

The renowned journalist and television presenter, Sir John Tusa, also remarked on the innovative nature of the house in his foreword to the book 'Trevor Dannatt: Works and Words':

"… the hope that this yearning for the new in buildings might become reality came to us through Trevor Dannatt… When [Peter and Janet Laslett] invited us for Sunday lunch in their new house, the whole occasion was an eye-opener. It could not have been - and continues to be - more different from those roads of Cambridge Dons' houses, redbrick, bay windowed, gravelled drives… Here was a house… certainly not flashy but proud and distinctive.

When Anne [my wife] and I went inside we both now the future we instinctively want was possible. Here it was, and here was someone living in it… The house seemed revolutionary but it also felt deeply right. This was how the world could be, should be. The experience never left us; it represented an ideal of design and behaviour.

Trevor Dannatt's classical, harmonious, balanced modernism seems as attractive today as it did then. It is.. humane and at home with the places where his buildings sit and with the people who use them. These are enduring qualities."

Today the house stands almost as it did in the 1950s. The lower part of the house is constructed of Holco blockwork and painted a very dark green. The dominant slightly overhanging upper part is constructed of timber faced with Western Red Cedar boarding which has been allowed to weather. The timber windows are of sapele, stained and varnished.