ABSTRACT

The people of Caryae in Peloponnesus had sided with the enemies of Greece, Vitruvius recounted, and as punishment for betraying the state, the Greeks took the married women of Caryae into slavery. Contradicting the glibness that has been attributed to Lubetkin, Highpoint II marked a decisive moment for him, his architecture from that point forward legitimizing a new expressiveness. Highpoint II's caryatids discreetly concealed Lubetkin's revolutionary, modernist side, couching it in conservative, backwards-looking, mollifying, historical detailing. Lubetkin might have chosen to remain invisible in terms of his Jewishness, but that veil was also forced upon him and other Jews. Lubetkin was not just part of the modernist scene in London – he helped create and promote it, along with the many Jews with whom he worked in his practice. Fredric Bedoire has considered the impact of Jews on modern European architecture, though his study ends in 1930 and is only marginally concerned with England.