Frederick Gibberd

Who was Frederick Gibberd?

Sir Frederick Ernest Gibberd was an English architect, town planner and landscape designer.

Gibberd was born in Coventry, the eldest of the five children of a local tailor, and was educated at the city's King Henry VIII School. In 1925 he was articled to a firm of architects in Birmingham and studied architecture under William Bidlake at the Birmingham School of Art, where his room-mate was F. R. S. Yorke.

A good friend of Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, Gibberd's work was influenced by Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and F.R.S. Yorke. He set up in practice in 1930, designing Pullman Court, Streatham Hill, London, a low-cost housing development which launched his career. With the success of this scheme, Gibberd became established as the 'flat' architect and went on to build several other schemes including Park Court, Sydenham, London and Ellington Court, Southgate, London continuing to practice until the outbreak of the Second World War.

Gibberd and Yorke collaborated on a number of publications including the influential book 'The Modern Flat' which was published in 1937 and featured the then newly completed Pullman Court and Park Court, as well as many other European examples.