Birkin Haward

[4] In his early architectural career, he worked at the practice of Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff in London, where he collaborated on two important Modernist buildings, 64 Old Church Street, Chelsea, and the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea.

After the Second World War, Haward's work focused in the east of England, from a base in his home town of Ipswich (1946–82).

After his retirement in 1982, Haward published books on Victorian ecclesiastical stained glass and medieval church architecture.

[1][2][3] There he was disappointed to find that then-contemporary giants in the architectural field such as Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright failed to feature in the curriculum, which as he later noted, did not continue far into the 19th century.

[2] In 1933 he toured the Netherlands by bicycle, which stimulated his interest in modern styles practised on the Continent, particularly the work of Le Corbusier, Willem Dudok and Erich Mendelsohn.

[1][2] In 1934, Haward joined Mendelsohn's partnership with Serge Chermayeff and their assistant Hannes Schreiner, remaining there until the practice's closure.

[1][2][3] At the London practice he was involved in the design of 64 Old Church Street, Chelsea (1936), considered a Modernist classic,[1][2] and also worked on the De La Warr Pavilion at Bexhill-on-Sea.

[1] Like other left-leaning Modernist architects of his generation, he advocated for housing improvements and the construction of air-raid shelters,[3] and he worked on the latter with Berthold Lubetkin and his company Tecton.

The exterior and entrance walls are decorated with relief panels, some of which were designed by Haward and his colleagues, and others by the local artist Bernard Reynolds.

[7][8] Haward designed the grade-II-listed Castle Hill Congregational Church in Ipswich (1955–56), which is characterised by its extremely steep roof with an unusual profile; its walls are decorated with coloured panels in a lozenge pattern.

The octagonal library building is raised on concrete supports with a jettied upper storey and is decorated with diamonds and bands in blue brick.

[6] He painted local scenes in the North Norfolk area over sixty years from the 1930s, particularly subjects including the church in the village of Salthouse, where he had a holiday house.

[1][2][3][4] Two of their children became architects, including his eldest son, Birkin Jr (born 1939), of van Heyningen and Haward.

[10] From the 1930s, he also had a long association with North Norfolk, and in 1946 purchased a pair of fishermen's cottages at Salthouse, where the family spent holidays until the mid-1970s.