At heart, we’re a campaigning organisation and when necessary we can activate our experts, members and supporters to highlight and resolve urgent preservation challenges.
This involves much more than C20 Society experts making a polite yet compelling case for an outstanding building or design to be saved or listed. We also need to make lots of ‘noise’, to ensure enough people, including influential people, understand why it’s important to act decisively.
Most of us are barraged by information 24/7, so we need to make sure our campaign messages stand out across all media – from social media posts to strong letters to the papers and local MPs. The more noise we make, the bigger impact we can have.
How do we know our ‘mass action’ campaigning works? The evidence is all around us in the irreplaceable buildings and design we’ve saved. These include the Art Deco Rex Cinema in Berkhamsted, the brutalist Preston Bus Station and the high-tech Plymouth Western Morning News headquarters, all listed after successful C20 campaigns.
Catherine Croft Director, C20 Society
Don’t know where to start? We can help you discover many ways to help save historical buildings.
We are seeing increasing numbers of well designed C20 department stores coming up for demolition or unsympathetic alteration as more high street shops close in response to changing shopping habits and the pressure of the coronavirus pandemic.
C20 society celebrated 40 years of campaigning to save the best 20th century art and design by highlighting 40 buildings which would not have survived without our intervention – from our much-loved red telephone boxes and art deco lidos to concrete brutalist structures and sleek modernist homes…
Some of Britain’s most dynamic and expressive buildings are being lost to the developers’ wrecking ball, before their heritage value is recognised. This campaign highlights significant C20th buildings that have already been lost…
100 Buildings 100 Years was launched in 2014 to mark 100 years since the start of the period we cover (which begins in 1914). One building was chosen to represent each year and show the diversity and brilliance of the architecture we protect…
War memorials loom large in the architectural and social history of the last century. They formed a significant part of the work of major British architects such as Herbert Baker, Reginald Blomfield and, above all, Edwin Lutyens. On the anniversary of the First World War we drew together notes, primarily written by the late Gavin Stamp, from C20 Society visits to war memorials in London, France, Belgium and Italy…
Murals are for everyone and the post-war years were a time of tremendous experimentation and exuberance for public art – as well as architecture. Post-war murals are an endangered species. At least 1,000 murals were created between 1945 and the 1980s, but they are often ignored and even destroyed….
Use your spare time and talents to help us as a valued C20 Society volunteer.