Casework is at the heart of what C20 is all about. We campaign to save irreplaceable buildings we love and think are outstanding.
Read about our latest Casework news here.
Below are more reflective articles by our Caseworkers.
Our expertise is recognised by our official role in the planning process. The Twentieth Century Society has to be consulted about any application for listed building consent involving demolition, anywhere in England. Although we don’t have the same legal role in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we are often asked to give our views on the future of important buildings of our period there.
We get to hear about threated buildings by lots of other routes too, and our members and supporters are always alert to threats and quick to let us know about them. Most societies like ours (such as the Victorian Society or the Ancient Monuments Society) can reckon on almost all the buildings of their period that should be listed already being safely included on the National Heritage List for England, which is run by Historic England. That’s not the case for us, and putting buildings forward for listing is a big part of what we do, and often a crucial early step in a campaign. We’ve called for much wider recognition for groups of C20 buildings, by designation of conservation areas, but generally our resources mean that we can only lend support to individual buildings if they are already listed, or we think they deserve to be.
If you found this useful, please give what you can afford to help us identify and save irreplaceable C20th buildings and design.
Whilst on a series of site visits in North Wales, that also included Portmeirion, I had the pleasure of driving over the Menai Bridge and up to Awmlch, which lies on the North Coast of Anglesey, looking out over the Irish Sea. Just outside the town, ...
The churches of the twentieth century are more varied architecturally than those from any other period in this country’s history. Whether their architecture draws on the language of the past or embraces new technology and symbolic shapes that he...
On the east side of Hanger Lane— approximately half-way between its junction with Uxbridge Road and Hanger Lane tube station—lies hidden a little gem of late 1930s ecclesiastical architecture: the Church of the Ascension by Hon. John Seely ...
What is a ‘tecton’? Well may you ask. The term has been adopted for the structures designed by emigré architect Bernard Lubetkin’s practice Tecton—so far just the ones at Dudley Zoo, but it may well spread. We are delighted to report th...
Thanks to a recent grant from English Heritage, we have started an exciting new project, that we hope will appeal to members and to potential future supporters. Over the coming months, we will be adding to our website audio slideshows and podcasts th...
Set back from the road and partially screened by trees, a very particular house is “tucked away in suburban Ipswich in a bosky setting almost Californian”, as Alan Powers noted in 1992. Standing as a pavilion in the middle of its elongated wooded...
As Gavin has said in his article in the Autumn C20 magazine, the battle to preserve Battersea Power Station (BPS) has been one of the Society’s longest running concerns. Whilst the building itself has steadily declined and inched ever closer to rui...
Eagle-eyed C20 members visiting the capital will have rejoiced in the mysterious disappearance of the infamous ‘Swiss light’ –the illuminated box at the top of Tate Modern’s chimney. C20 had always opposed this element of the otherwise excell...
The Society is always delighted to hear of a local authority taking an active interest in preserving twentieth century buildings under their watch. This spring, a gold star sticker goes to Maidstone Borough Council in Kent for deciding that Conservat...
In recent months, 24-26 Hereford Square in Kensington, London, by Colin St John Wilson (1958), has become a controversial case and triggered a series of very pertinent questions concerning the role of the main players in listing review cases and the ...
This winter has seen two pioneering housing estates (one in Harlow and the other in Lewisham) face imminent demolition—not by developers, but by local authorities eager to meet the Government’s ‘decent homes’ standards. As well as the loss of...
Just a block away from the RIBA Headquarters on Portland Place in central London, right next to the Chinese Embassy and right under everybody’s nose, there lies ‘hidden’ a rare example of domestic architecture by the two Gilbert Scott brothers...
It comes as a shock when a twentieth century building that is widely admired, not just by the Society or by architectural and design enthusiasts, but by the general public and its every day users, comes under threat. When the building in question is ...
As you may remember from the last newsletter, the Society secured a grant from the Heritage of London Trust to uncover and refurbish the Magic Garden Mosaic (Francis Carr, 1961). There was a degree of trepidation as we pulled the plasterboard away fr...
We have requested a review of the DCMS’s decision not to list Alison and Peter Smithson’s Robin Hood Gardens. Here are some of what we consider to the most interesting and compelling points to have come out of the proofs of evidence provided for ...
It is rare to stumble across any kind of shopping structure that is both, architecturally interesting enough to be listed and in sufficiently good condition. But so far 2008 has thrown up lots of promising examples—many sadly now at risk. In these...
Following on from the well-attended and thoroughly entertaining Post-War Murals Study Day, organised by TACS Chair Lynn Pearson in November last year, the Society is focusing on murals this year. We are asking members and supporters of the Society to...
The last time the Society got involved in a case concerning a big concrete building in Wales – we fought valiantly but ultimately lost. Even though the seminal and internationally important Brynmawr Rubber Factory,(Architects Co-operative Partnersh...
The Greenbank Drive Synagogue was built in 1936/7 and is the work of the notable Liverpool architect Sir Ernest Alfred Shennan. Most of his other work is also in Merseyside and comprises a diversity of building types. His inter-war designs included W...
A multi-storey? You’re trying to protect a multi-storey car park? In this day and age when that most spectacular of garages in Gateshead—Owen Luder’s Trinity Square car park in Gateshead is facing imminent demolition and the impact that cars ha...
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