Howe, Jack 1911 - 2003

Jack Howe was born in Enfield Middlesex, on 24 February 1911 and studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic School of Architecture in London. He then worked briefly as an assistant of the architect Joseph Emberton before moving to the London office of Maxwell Fry and Walter Gropius in 1934. Following the departure of Gropius to America in 1937, Howe oversaw the completion of a project on which the latter architect had been working - Impington Village College.

Between 1939-44. Howe worked with Holland Hannen & Cubitts for the Royal Ordnance factories, and in 1944 joined Arcon as associate partner with whom he worked on the design of the Mark 4 prefabricated house.  

In 1949 Howe established his own independent office,  Jack Howe & Partners, in London. In addition to his architectural work, which included several buildings for the London County Council, such as Highbury Quadrant Primary School and Windmill House, Lambeth, Howe moved increasingly into the field of industrial design. Among his clients were British Rail, Pifco, Gent & Co., Chubb, AEI, Thermos, Morphy-Richards and Heals.  He designed clocks, hairdryers, street furniture, including lamp-posts and bus shelters, and in 1951 designed lighting and litter-bins for the Festival of Britain. He also designed the Kodak pavilion for the Exposition Universelle et Internationale (Expo 58) in Brussels in 1958, and, with Maurice L Gauthier, the British Pavilion at the British Trade Fair in Moscow in 1961.

 In 1957 Howe was appointed design consultant to the British Transport Commission, to work on the new diesel Pullman trains.  Between 1959-76 he was in partnership with Andrew Bain.  

Howe was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA) in 1935 and a Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers (FSIAD), serving as the Society’s President in 1963-64.  In 1961 he was elected a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) by the Royal Society of Arts.

Howe lived in Dorking, Surrey.  He died on 3 December 2003