The Ideal House Competition was run for many years as part of the Ideal Home Show

Ideal Home Show

The Ideal Home Show is an annual event in London, now held at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre. The show was devised by the Daily Mail newspaper in 1908 and continued to be run by the Daily Mail up until 2009...

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Every year designs were invited and the winning schemes would be constructed at Olympia for the Ideal Home Show the following year. The houses were often the product of progressive builders who were keen to secure sales of their houses. As a result many of the Ideal Homes temporarily exhibited at Olympia were subsequently permamently built across the Country. Examples include:

• 1927 Modest two storey red brick house by Gordon Allen. Subsequently erected By the Universal ousing Co Ltd Rickmansworth, Herts.
• 1934 This flat roofed, white walled modernist house sported a tall staircase window, curved corner bay windows a balcony and a roof terrace. Erected at 63 Casleton Boulevard, Skegness. This house has, unfortunately, been heavily altered with extensions, pitched roof and replacement windows.

Winning Schemes

• 1911 By Reginald C Fry
  Reginald C Fry
  Reginald C Fry was an English architect.Fry's largest body of work can be found at Park Langley, Beckenham where he was supervising architect for the laying out of the estate and designer of many of the houses....
  
  . This was subsequently erected at 2 Whitecroft Way, Park Langley
  Park Langley
  Park Langley is a suburb of Beckenham, Kent which was first developed in the 1900s on the historic Langley Park Estate by H & G Taylor Builders....
  
  , Beckenham
• 1934 By Leslie Kemp and Tasker
  Leslie Kemp and Tasker
  Leslie H Kemp and Frederick E Tasker were English architects who practiced in the 1930s as Kemp & Tasker.They are best known for their cinemas, although they are responsible for a number of notable buildings in South London and Kent for a Messrs Morrell Bros. Builders of 60 High Street, Bromley,...
  
  . This was subsequently erected in a number of locations including London and Dublin.
• 1965 By Edward Drewery. This steel house was dismantled re-erected at London Biggin Hill Airport
  London Biggin Hill Airport
  London Biggin Hill Airport is an airport at Biggin Hill in the London Borough of Bromley, located south southeast of Central London, United Kingdom...
  
  

House of the Future

A more innovative aspect of the Ideal Home Show was the House of the Future which ran through the 1930s and in 1956. These proposals tended to predict future house styles and technologies not yet available.

• 1928 by S Rowland Pierce and R A Duncan
• 1956 by Alison and Peter Smithson