Salix

Cambridge has an unusual concentration of Modernist houses, Salix was his earliest private house in the Modernist style. and Postan in Sylvester Road (1939), for the historians Michael Postan and Eileen Power, now part of Robinson College. The earliest houses in the area were clustered at what is now the north end of the road, and followed a traditional design: Conduit Head (1910), Conduit Rise (originally Grithow Field; 1913 or 1914) and Clement's End (around 1926). From the 1930s, a diverse group of Modernist houses were built in an ad hoc fashion; Salix forms part of a group of three white Modernist houses, which were originally set in extensive grounds and adjacent to the wilderness…

Salix stands at on the west side of Conduit Head Road, near the junction with Madingley Road. It is constructed of brick, on a concrete frame, and is rendered and painted white. The architectural historian Charles McKean likens the truncated upper storey to the "bridge of a square stranded ocean liner." The main south façade is seven windows in length. The two-storey west wing projects on the south face. In the original layout, this part had a central hall around which were the kitchen, living room and internal garage on the ground floor. The narrow elongated single-storey east wing (five windows in length), beneath the roof terrace, was devoted to sleeping accommodation. The first floor…