Robin Hood Gardens – C20 launches campaign for funds

The Twentieth Century Society has begun a campaign for funds to continue to fight for the listing of Robin Hood Gardens. The housing estate, built by influential husband and wife partnership, Alison and Peter Smithson was turned down for listing in July, but since then, the Society has been successful in its request for a review of the decision.

DCMS has stated that it wants to complete the review within five months. It is a process that will involve the Society, English Heritage and the local authority, Tower Hamlets.

The Society needs to raise £6000 to cover the legal and administrative costs incurred by the review. This money is vital if the Society is to continue to fight for the building at this level – we need to enlarge the arguments we have already made and take the best legal advice on how to structure and submit our representations.

We have already submitted extensive material refuting the arguments made by English Heritage in their initial assessment but we know that more information will be produced by them shortly.  The submission from our legal Counsel, Richard Harwood, which lays out clearly the reasons we thought the original decision was wrong can be seen here.   Our new submissions will need to be equally rigorous and comprehensive.

Our campaign will begin this Friday (3rd October) with the publication of the advertisement you see here – it will run on a prominent page of Building Design, the weekly paper targeted at architects. BD has been tremendously supportive of our attempts to get the estate listed, and is running this advertisement for free.  Their reporting on the building, rallying of the architectural profession and help with submissions has been a key part of the campaign thus far.

For more information see our recent Casework report in the Autumn issue of the C20 magazine.

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For more images or information please contact:
Jon Wright (jon.wright(at)c20society.org.uk) telephone 020 7250 3857
Out of hours: 07855 406718