Background
He took over Best & Lloyd, his father"s light industrial engineering works in Birmingham, having previously trained as a metal designer at art school in Düsseldorf.
He took over Best & Lloyd, his father"s light industrial engineering works in Birmingham, having previously trained as a metal designer at art school in Düsseldorf.
He went on to design the Bestlite, an iconic Bauhaus-styled desk lamp that remains in production and was used by Winston Churchill in Whitehall. His social circle included a group of Birmingham artists and intellectuals including Professor Philip Sargant Florence and others associated with Birmingham University.
He also befriended Nikolaus Pevsner during Pevsner"s 15 months in Birmingham between 1934-1935, and hosted the first visit of Walter Gropius to the Midlands after Gropius"s departure from Germany in 1935.
Best wrote prolifically, though only one of his books was published in his lifetime: Brass Chandelier, his history of his father"s experiments with metal manufacturing and promotion of progressive German pedagogic ideas, which Pevsner reviewed in the Architectural Review.