John Penn (1921 – 2007) was one of Britain’s greatest Modern architects, but his uncompromising approach, alongside the love of the Suffolk region in which he lived, meant that he never achieved the wider prominence of some of his peers. He worked with Frederick Gibberd early in his career (engaged in the design of Harlow new town), but his defining work came when he travelled to California to take up a position in the office of Richard Neutra. Los Angeles, which Penn described as “nice on wheels”, proved a welcome counterpoint to the austerity of post-war Britain. Neutra’s celebrated Californian houses of this period have come to define the “Mid-Century Modern” style that is now so popular; what Penn took from Neutra was an adherence to a classical rigour of plan, as well as a devotion to light, spacious interiors through the use of extensive glazing. After a brief period working in the New York offices of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Penn returned to the UK, where he took up teaching before designing his first house, for his mother, in 1962. This led to a number of local commissions during this decade, and the collection of the so-called “temple houses”. Alan Powers wrote in The Independent in 2007, “Like Mies van der Rohe’s house, Penn’s have the character of temples… the whole composition is lucid and calm, the epitome of the union of the classical and modern.” During the 1970s, Penn wound down his architectural career to concentrate on his other passion, painting. He continued to live in Suffolk and work as an artist until his death.