Lacoste, Gerald Auguste Charles 1908 - 1983

Gerald Auguste Charles Lacoste [commonly known as Gerald Lacoste] was born in Eastbourne, Sussex on 30 March 1908.  He qualified as an architect in 1930. After working for a firm in Frinton on Sea, Essex, and for Sir Edwin Lutyens and Oswald Milne, he opened his own practice in 1933.

In the 1930s, Lacoste designed houses for a number of celebrities including for the singer Gracie Fields in Frognal, London, and for the couturier Edward Molyneux. For Norman Hartnell, dressmaker to the Queen, in 1934 he created a Salon within a large 18th century townhouse at 26 Bruton Street, Mayfair, London. The salon is generally acknowledged as one of the finest examples of pre-war commercial design.  Lacoste's innovative use of glass in the project including the frameless entrance doors to the salon attracted a lot of attention in the press at the time.

A photograph of a hall and staircase at the gown salon of Glenny Ltd. designed by Lacoste is illustrated in Decorative Art vol. 35, 1940 (p. 51); and a photograph of a beaten copper and opalite glass decorative wall light panel, designed by Lacoste and made by Wm. Pickford Ltd. (metalwork) and Troughton & Young Ltd. (glasswork) is illustrated in Decorative Art vol. 44, 1954-55 (p. 79).

Lacoste was elected  an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA) in 1930, and subsequently a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA).

In addition to his work as an architect, Lacoste was also an accomplished painter. Examples of his work are in the permanent collection of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Museum.

Lacoste's address was given as 19 Upperton Gardens, Eastbourne, Sussex in 1935.; and 1 Dover Street, London in 1939. He died at The Panels, Manuden, Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, on 22 November 1983.