Sir Frederick Gibberd

Frederick Gibberd was an English architect and landscape designer, born on 7 January 1908, the eldest of five children of a local tailor. When born, the family lived in Spencer Avenue but later moved to Clarendon House in Clarendon Street, where Frederick grew up and decided he wanted to be an architect. He was educated at King Henry VIII School.

In 1925 he was articled to a firm of architects, Crouch, Butler and Savage, in Birmingham, and studied architecture under William Bidlake at the Birmingham School of Art. A good friend of Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, Gibberd's work was influenced by Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and FRS Yorke. He set up in practice in 1930, designing Pullman Court, Streatham Hill (1934–6), a low-cost housing development which launched his career.

Gibberd and Yorke collaborated on a number of publications including the influential book The Modern Flat, published in 1937. During World War II Gibberd taught at the Architectural Association School, London, and was Principal from 1942 to 1944. He was also influential in the design of prefabricated houses, particularly for the British Iron and Steel Federation, used extensively in the rebuilding of Coventry after the war.

He was consultant architect planner for Harlow New Town and spent the rest of his life living in the town he had designed. Notable works include The Lawn, Britain's first modern-style point block; pioneering housing schemes; and the Harvey Centre, an early British example of a large indoor shopping mall. Harlow is regarded as the most successful of Britain's post-war new towns.

The architect's other major achievements included the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool, the London Central Mosque, and a monastery in Douai, France. The beautiful Gibberd Garden in Old Harlow, which he designed and made from the 1950s until his death, is now open to the public.

He died in January 1984 at the age of 76.