The London-based Isokon firm was founded in 1929 by the English entrepreneur Jack Pritchard and the Canadian architect Wells Coates to design and construct modernist houses and flats, and furniture and fittings for them. Originally called Wells Coates and Partners, the name was changed in 1931 to Isokon, a name derived from Isometric Unit Construction, bearing an allusion to Russian Constructivism.

In 1925, Pritchard had become employed as a sales and marketing manager for the British company Venesta, a subsidiary of the large Estonian plywood manufacturer A. M. Luther, based in Tallinn. After having met in Paris, Pritchard hired the designer Charlotte Perriand through the architect firm of Le Corbusier to design a trade fair stand for Venesta at Olympia, London in 1929. Despite his involvement with Lawn Road Flats and the Isokon company, Jack Pritchard continued to work for Venesta until 1936. Pritchard used Venesta to make his Isokon plywood furniture.

The Isokon company was never commercially successful. The end came with the outbreak of World War II when its supply of plywood from Estonia was cut off due to the Soviet invasion of the Baltic countries when the A. M. Luther company in Tallinn was confiscated. The Isokon Furniture Company ceased trading in 1939 but was restarted in 1963. Since 1982, the furniture is made by Isokon Plus, formerly known as Windmill Furniture, under licence from the Pritchard family.

Isokon's key project was the Lawn Road Flats in Hampstead, called the Isokon building since 1972, which was formally opened on 9 July 1934. It was designed by Wells Coates after a brief by Molly Pritchard, based on the Minimum Flat concept presented at the CIAM (Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne) conference of 1929. In March 1931, Wells Coates, Jack Pritchard and Serge Chermayeff had visited Germany, including the Bauhaus school and the Törten Estate in Dessau, both designed by Walter Gropius, which possibly influenced the design of Lawn Road Flats. The building process and the opening event was photographed by Edith Tudor-Hart (née Edith Suschitzky) who was educated 1928-30 at the Bauhaus school in Dessau, but also a recruiter for Soviet intelligence. Intended to be the last word in contemporary living, the block of flats was aimed at young professionals. It contained 22 single flats, four double flats, three studio flats, staff quarters, kitchens and a large garage. Services included shoe cleaning, laundry, bed making and food sent up by a dumb waiter at the spine of the building. In 1937, a restaurant and bar designed by Marcel Breuer and F. R. S. Yorke named the Isobar, located on the ground floor with a decked outdoor area, was added to the building. Its second manager was Philip Harben, who after World War II became the first TV chef at the BBC. Jack Pritchard also set up a supper club called The Half Hundred Club, so named because it could have no more than 25 members who could bring 25 guests. They dined at the Isobar, at Pritchard's penthouse flat in Lawn Road Flats or at more exotic locations, such as London Zoo.

The flats and the Isobar became famous as a centre for intellectual life in north London. Residents included the novelist Agatha Christie and her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan, the Soviet intelligence recruiter Arnold Deutsch who was the controller of the group of Cambridge educated Soviet spies who came to be known as the Cambridge Spy Ring, the German born economist and Communist Jürgen Kuczynski, the author Nicholas Monsarrat, ethnomusicologist Erich Moritz von Hornbostel, architect Jacques Groag and his textile designer wife Jacqueline Groag, architects Egon Riss and Arthur Korn and the author Adrian Stokes. The British architects Sir James Stirling and Alec Bright, later director of the Museo del Oro in Bogotá, Colombia were resident during the 1960s. Regulars at the Isobar included the sculptors Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, the painter Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, all who lived locally, as well as Sir Julian Huxley, secretary of the Zoological Society of London 1935–1942.

Pritchard remained in London during World War II while Molly Pritchard and their children Jonathan and Jeremy left for America where the children were put in a boarding school in Canada while Molly moved in with Walter and Ise Gropius in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Lawn Road Flats was popular as a residence during the war due to being made out of reinforced concrete, and despite near bombs, survived the Blitz. It was repainted brown during the war as it was feared its white surface would serve as a navigation aid for German bombers.

In 1955, Pritchard staged a 21st-birthday party for the building on its roof top terrace. Philip Harben returned to make the food, architectural writer Nikolaus Pevsner made a speech and letters from Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Agatha Christie were read out. Wells Coates as well as many pre-World War II residents attended the event.

From 1966, Jack and Molly Pritchard increasingly spent their time at a new home in Blythburgh, Suffolk, designed by Jack's daughter Jennifer Jones (née Tudor-Hart) and her husband Colin, although they kept the penthouse at Lawn Road Flats until the mid 1970s. The modern bungalow, also called Isokon, is still owned by the Pritchard family.