Between 1956 and 1963 James Stirling and James Gowan created a seminal body of work, one that seemed to challenge the overly-institutionalized state of contemporary modernism, and even to point the way to other alternatives beyond it. Their buildings were quasi-brutalist and pre-postmodern, startlingly original in the context of the worthy architecture of the welfare state, yet able to draw on inter-war forms of continental modernism as well as the architecture of the industrial city.

Crinson M, “Picturesque and Intransigent: ‘Creative Tension’ and Collaboration in the Early House Projects of Stirling and Gowan” (2007) 50 Architectural History 267

Langham House Close was Stirling and Gowan's first major work in partnership together, a fully developed reaction against the curtain-walled public housing of the period. The blocks were Grade II listed in 1998 and upgraded to Grade II* in 2006.

This website has been built to tell the story of the ‘Flats at Ham Common’, creating a platform for its residents and future owners, but also to engage and connect with other people that are passionate about Modernist architecture.