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.
The National Recreation Centre was designed and built at a time when the national government generously invested in good architecture for the public. In 1954, just after the Royal Festival Hall had opened, the LCC Architects’ Department started dra...
The Barbican’s listing has meant an increased awareness of the pressures for change and maintenance issues and how to deal with them without damaging the historically relevant components of the fabric. It was decided that establishing Listed Build...
The Society’s Honorary Solicitor, Joseph S Mirwitch LL.M. (Lond.) Solicitor (Hons), brings us up to date on Greenside and asks members to write to the Planning Inspectorate supporting our cause. Background “Greenside” was a very important Briti...
What do a waste incinerator, a lift testing tower and a multi-storey car park have in common? The new website of the Twentieth Century Society, www.riskybuildings.org.uk, shows some of the uncelebrated and forgotten examples of twentieth century arch...
Hopes were raised at the beginning of the summer about the future of the Midland Hotel, Morecambe when Manchester-based developers Urban Splash announced their intention to buy and redevelop it. Urban Splash played a large part in the regeneration of...
The Barbican: well, we love it, but it is an affection that comes at a cost. We've been frustrated by the piecemeal repairs to the roofs and terraces that have gone on for the past years without regard to the existing fabric and without a coordinated...
In February Claire Barrett left her post as the Society's full-time caseworker. In her final report she writes about Portsmouth 's Tricorn centre which, as Claire feared, and despite the Society's best efforts, was soon after turned down for listing....
Changes are proposed for Stephen Yakeley's house in Linton that the architect built for his own family in 1971. Burdened by a restricted site and a tight budget, Yakeley used his talent not merely to overcome these constraints but to be inspired by ...
The Hayward is a dirty, gnarled, bunker of a building. I've always thought that the strip window high up on the elevation facing the Royal Festival Hall looks like the mouth of a crazed robot, menacing down on us little people as we walk the highwalk...
There are several instances of symbolic cleansing ritual in modern architectural theory and history: Otto Wagner’s glass bathtub and the hand basin at the entrance to Villa Savoye to name two. However, if one seeks more prosaic and pragmatic verifi...
The Co-Operative Insurance Society (CIS) Chief Office was built between 1959-62. Its aim was to provide the company with a headquarters in the north comparable to anything in London. Operating from ten different sites in Manchester following the war,...
Designed by George Checkley, Willow House is a Grade II* listed modernist house built in 1932 for Dr McCombie of Kings College. The house stands in secluded and extensive grounds along Conduit Head Road, which runs through a wooded conservation area ...
Built in the 1930s, this former water-softening plant at Newnham appears to be a rare survivor. It forms part of a water treatment site constructed for Mid Kent Water plc, which also includes a pumphouse dating from 1937 and a pair of semi-detached h...
Greenside, originally called Bracken, was one of the later houses designed by the Connell, Ward and Lucas practice. Amyas Connell (1901-80) and Basil Ward (1902-76) were New Zealanders and, like many other expatriates who came to Britain, were figure...
Greenside, a grade II listed 1930s house, was described by HR Hitchcock as "one of the best" of Connell, Ward and Lucas's houses which he saw as "among the most characteristic examples of the time and the period". Now Runnymede Council in Surrey has ...
I regret to have to report that The Post and Mail building by the John Madin Design Partnership has again been turned down for listing and is now likely to be demolished. This building, a tower on a podium inspired by the Lever building in New York, ...
The English university system was not greatly challenged until the 1960s - as Stefan Muthesius says in The Post-War University Utopianus Campus and College (2000), "there were the two old foundations and 'the rest'"(p.59). The sixties bore witness to...
H T Cadbury-Brown, with Sir Hugh Casson & Robert Gooden, 1960-63, Listed grade II The Royal College of Art sits strikingly amongst the many Georgian white stuccoed terraces and red Victorian mansions of Kensington. It was a brave move on Westmins...
Connell, Ward and Lucas, 1937, Listed Grade II Built in 1937, Greenside is an excellent example of private houses of this century and of the International Modern Style in Britain, and more particularly a great work within the architects' oeuvre [clic...
R. Seifert and Partners, unlisted Draper’s Gardens is set within the City of London and unlike many of its peers, this striking concrete office block has a commanding presence. Yet, like many buildings of the inter-war period, it faces imminent dem...
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