The Metropolitan Boroughs of St. Pancras, Holborn and Hampstead merged to become Camden in 1965. Under the stewardship of Sydney Cook, the new borough quickly became renowned for its radical housing. Cook appointed a “dream team” of architects working out of Holborn Town Hall, led by Neave Brown. These included Peter Tabori, who was born in Hungary in 1942 and studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic. When he was a student, he asked the local authority for a diploma project and was given the brief for Highgate New Town (Whittington Estate). After working for Ernö Goldfinger and Denys Lasdun, Tabori joined Camden Architects Department – Sydney Cook had been so impressed by Tabori’s student work that he was employed to develop it into the final scheme.

The estate was built between 1973 and 1978 overlooking the cemetery. It comprises six terraces with strong horizontal lines of balconies and cornices and vertical cross walls. Between each terrace is a pedestrian walkway, with trees and shrubs to soften the architecture.

Under the guiding hand of Sydney Cook, certain qualities emerged among the council architects of the period that came to be defined as the “Camden style”. This includes the stepped section that is evident at the Whittington Estate, which allows for large, private, external terraces to be open to the sun. This was employed to equally dramatic effect by Neave Brown at the Alexandra Road Estate and by Patrick Hodgkinson at the Brunswick Centre, and was likely influenced by the Siedlung Halen housing by Atelier 5 in Switzerland.