Learning from Le Corbusier and Lubetkin: the work of Ryder and Yates

In 1953, two young committed modernists, Gordon Ryder and Peter Yates, set up in architectural practice in Newcastle upon Tyne. The time was not propitious; provincial architecture was still dominated by an outworn pre-war classical model, and the North East region was no exception. But Ryder and Yates' modernist credentials were impeccable; Yates had been a pupil of Peter Moro and had worked in Paris for Clive Entwhistle, who introduced him to Le Corbusier. Ryder, fresh from a studio assistantship at Durham University, met Yates at Peterlee New Town in 1948. From 1953, when their practice was launched, until the late 1970s, Ryder and Yates produced a series of buildings of astonishing maturity within the Corbusian idiom, their zenith being major commissions in the 1960s for Northern Gas at Killingworth New Town, Northumberland. A diverse output of buildings for social housing, health and welfare, commerce, industry and entertainment, ensured their position as the region's premier architects, and brought them national acclaim; this study assesses the prevailing influence of their mentors, Le Corbusier and Berthold Lubetkin, throughout a quarter of a century of exemplary architectural practice.