Though it only lasted from 1919 to 1933, in those 14 years Bauhaus ushered in a truly modern way of thinking about arts and crafts, the public realm, urbanism and the union of form and function. In 2010, as Laurent was walking in Courbevoie, he discovered a tiny little street where he felt time had stopped for 50 years. "The place was surreal. I befriended a couple of old people and started to photograph them. Their traditional garden offered a stark contrast with the surrounding skyline of towers, bringing together two different eras, two different living styles."

Modern House | Selling the UK’s most inspiring living spaces The Modern House | Selling the UK’s most inspiring living spaces

With its striking stepped-concrete terraces, the Alexandra & Ainsworth Estate is the most famous of the social housing schemes built during Camden’s “golden age” in the 1960s and 1970s. Rowley Way was built between 1972-78 by the revered Modernist architect Neave Brown and has been given a rate Grade II* listing by English Heritage in recognition of its architectural significance. Photographs of buildings - 2 stars - pretty tedious really. Where original features are shown they are interesting, but in general you get not-especially-good photographs of living spaces which, on the whole, have a pretty uniform taste in decoration.

The couple moved here in the autumn of 2015, shortly after the birth of their second child, leaving behind their two-bedroom flat with cantilevered stairs on the Golden Lane estate in London. “It was tiny,” says Bella. “Our living space was the size of what is now our playroom. And that was fine when we had one child. But then we were hankering after more space, and this place came up …” An express train takes me to Weimar, 280km south-west of Berlin. The founders of the Weimar Republic met there (also in 1919) because the city was as politically neutral as was possible in post-first world war Germany. They hoped for spiritual guidance from Weimar’s intellectual ghosts: former residents include Goethe, Schiller, Nietzsche and Liszt. Many people go to Berlin to eat sausages, drink lager and gawp at what’s left of the Wall. They might add on a trip to related exhibitions portraying life in the DDR or the Spy Museum. Bauhaus, by contrast, is not merely a past movement; it is a force in the present day, offering nuanced insights into German life and art. In art books, modernism is usually presented as rootless, but much of what we now think of as new has its roots in Dessau and Weimar. Each study begins with a concise but informative history of the project, illustrated with high quality new photography. However, what particularly illuminates this book is alluded to in the second part of its title the buildings and the people who live in them today. Interviews with present day occupiers cut through conventional academic analyses to reveal answers to questions that we would probably all want to ask: what is it like to live here, how successful is the community, how do the homes cope with young families, is the building fabric holding up, is statutory protection a blessing or a burden?

Modernist Estates - Europe | Book Review | Urban Design Group Modernist Estates - Europe | Book Review | Urban Design Group

The construction (from 1959) is less robust than what we were used to in the Barbican Estate and sound thermal insulation is less than ideal. It would be hard to improve either of those as the pivoting Crittal windows mean that secondary glazing is problematic. We designed and installed a glass screen between the kitchen and living room as someone before us widened the original opening and we wanted to enclose the kitchen but also make sure it looked visually open. We have replaced the non-original flooring throughout, so we now have floor tiles in the kitchen based on what Alvar Aalto used in Finland in the 1930s. We also replaced all internal door handles with replica Bakelite 1930s handles and put in 1930s glass globe ceiling pendant lights throughout. All furniture is either Heal’s originals from the 1930s, Isokon by Marcel Breuer or Artek by Alvar Aalto, plus floor and desk lights by Poul Henningsen. The only post-war furniture we own is Vitsoe shelving, designed by Dieter Rams in 1960; we have an insane amount of books and records.Overview of development- 5 stars - a model of concision perfectly explaining the context and complemented by well chosen photographs of the estate at the time of first completion.