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.
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Parkham Wood House in Brixham, Devon, is the first in a series of four private houses in the Torbay area, built by the locally based architect Mervyn Seal. It was brought to the Society’s attention by the current owners, Mr and Mrs Powell, who much...
It was with considerable relief that we learned at the beginning of November that proposals for development at the listed University of London Boathouse, 81 Hartington Road, Chiswick, had been rejected by Hounslow Council. This satisfactory result wa...
C20 has campaigned long and hard to secure the future of Pimlico School, which it considers an outstanding post-war building. We have put it forward for listing no less than four times, and strongly opposed the application made by Westminster for a ...
In the Society’s opinion, Stonecrop was always of sufficient quality to be listed. Indeed, putting it forward for assessment was always deemed appropriate. However, out of respect for the architect, Robert Harvey, it was never forwarded to EH. Late...
St Peter’s Seminary made it onto the World Monuments Fund’s Watch List 2008. The list is put together by an international panel of experts in archaeology, architecture, art history, and preservation. This is one of those landmark events where you...
The listing at Grade II of Plymouth’s Civic Centre has caused a furore in the city. The Twentieth Century Society asked English Heritage to assess it in April 2006, due to its innovative design, important art collections and its historical signific...
Have you ever been to Thorpeness? It is a unique place. We have argued that it is the first fantasy holiday village, the forerunner of themed resorts around the world today such as Disney Land. It’s great fun, and surprisingly little known—on the...
es, some of us like our concrete shell structures but this one really came as a surprise. It’s a 100ft hollow giant lying on the ground. The arms and legs are passages and the thing is a play structure of gigantic proportions. Gulliver in Craigmill...
This case struck us as unusual because it was designed by someone we had heard of—but someone we had not known had ever actually built anything. Architectural theorists, especially ones concerned with urbanism simply cannot avoid Professor Rykwertâ...
The campaign to stop British Telecom removing every single red cast-iron telephone kiosk designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott from both the urban and rural landscape of Britain was one of the most vigorous and successful mounted by our Society.- It is...
The plight of the red telephone box has long been a cause for the Society (see Gavin Stamp’s article). From time to time, the Society continues the battle, fighting against kiosk de-listing requests and highlighting the continuing and varied threat...
Marcus Kenneth Glass’s Sunderland Synagogue of 1928 is under indirect threat from owners who want to re-develop the site. This is particularly worrying because it is the last surviving synagogue by this prolific and largely unsung architect. Having...
The spa town of Malvern in Worcestershire is not the first place that springs to mind when considering revolutionary concrete construction techniques. However, in the grounds of Malvern Girls College is a structure that can lay claim to such a pedigr...
We are pleased to be able to report that this cold war structure is currently being considered for use as a safe storage facility. This is an obvious use for this tough concrete structure. Only minor changes will be needed to adapt it: a larger openi...
The Society is setting up a group to consider how best to assess which buildings of the 1970s should be listed. The thirty year rule means that all buildings that started on site up to 1976 are now eligible for Grade II listing, and by the time our r...
Geoffrey Chaucer School in Southwark opened in 1958. A brand new secondary school for girls designed by Chamberlin, Powell & Bon, Two Saints, as it was originally known, was one of the more celebrated architectural projects of that year. The prac...
In my 2005 director’s report, I covered Tessa Jowell’s decision not to delist the Commonwealth Institute—this was certainly good news, but we knew then that this would not be the end of the story and that sadly her decision did not mean that th...
National Sports Centre Good news first; the Society can announce that there has been an about turn in the plan for the National Sports Centre at Crystal Palace which for some years now has been under intense pressure and threat of demolition. Both th...
Following the planned demolition of the New Change Buildings the adjacent St Paul’s Cathedral Choir School is now also under threat. This comes as an ironic twist to the loud works involved in tearing down and replacing the large building by Victor...
Since April there have been concrete plans to knock down this first phase of the Barbican and replace it with a tower that is even bigger than Citypoint. A Certificate of Immunity is being processed by English Heritage to these ends. Post-war listin...
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