The Twentieth Century Society

Campaigning for outstanding buildings

C20 welcomes six new Trustees to board

Tow row, L to R: Hiba Alobaydi, Adam Coleman, Emma England
Bottom row, L to R: Phineas Harper, Colin Mitchell, Peter Parkes.

Following election by C20 Society members at the recent AGM (hosted this year in Cardiff, on July 6th) , we’re delighted to welcome six new Trustees to our board. They are Hiba Alobaydi, Adam Coleman, Emma England, Phineas Harper, Colin Mitchell, and Peter Parkes.

The new intake represents the first time in its history that the Society has recruited externally for trustees, and follows the election of distinguished journalist, editor and author Hugh Pearman as Chair, in 2023.

C20 Director Catherine Croft commented:

“Our call for new trustees elicited a gratifying response from a very wide range of people drawn to the work we do. The six we selected demonstrate a breadth of talent and experience. I look forward to working with a strengthened and inspirational board team who will help us develop our active, sustainable plan for the future. I’m sure they will add to the vitality and robustness of our challenging work, both in the public eye and behind the scenes.”

C20 Chair Hugh Pearman added:

“I’m cheered by the number of people at all career stages who want to join us as trustees: sorry that there were vacancies for only our chosen six. Their enthusiasm and ideas are highly encouraging. When it comes to recognising, adapting and preserving the best buildings and places of modern times, the C20 Society also acts as the C21 Society, with an ever-expanding remit. Our new trustees clearly relish the prospect. Welcome!”

Hiba Alobaydi

Hiba Alobaydi is a British-Iraqi historian, researcher and curator specialising in architecture and design. She is currently the Editor of The Architectural Historian, a biannual magazine published by the Society of Architectural Historians Great Britain.

With over a decade’s experience in the industry, Hiba has contributed to numerous institutions and publications including Architecture Ireland, London Festival of Architecture, and Dezeen. Hiba was previously Managing Editor at Archello, Assistant Editor at world-renowned architecture and engineering firm Foster + Partners, Features Editor at the UK’s premier commercial architecture magazine OnOffice and formed an integral part of the Design Museum’s first publishing team as their resident Editorial Assistant. She has also collaborated with renowned international publishing houses Taschen and Phaidon.

Adam Coleman

Adam is an experienced producer, fundraiser and strategist in the cultural sector, where he has championed widening access for children and young people. Returning to university to study architectural history, he now also works as a socially engaged researcher and historian. He currently combines a policy role at Arts Council England alongside PhD study at the University of Warwick, where his research is focused on towns in postwar Britain.

He has previously held leadership roles for Gloucester Culture Trust, Eden Court Highlands, Company Three and the Lyric Hammersmith, and has undertaken various voluntary roles, including Trusteeship for theatre/games-makers Coney. He hopes to bring particular experience and energy to support C20’s ambitions concerning strategic planning, income generation and youth engagement.

Emma England

Emma is Head of International Membership Experience at RIBA, with over twenty years’ experience working with architects and championing good design. Having studied History of Architecture, she worked at the Richard Rogers Partnership and then moved to the RIBA as Director for the Yorkshire Region, later working on the delivery of the RIBA Stirling Prize and launching the new RIBA Reinvention Award.

She brings significant expertise in engagement strategies, membership campaigns, awards and partnerships working with diverse stakeholder groups in the built environment for profile raising and recruitment and retention, alongside commercial experience of securing sponsorship, winning bids and securing contracts to fund major projects.

Phineas Harper

Phineas Harper is an innovative leader in developing sustainable cultural programmes that engage broad audiences with architecture and design. A regular contributor to The Guardian, their career spans criticism, curation, education, youth engagement, journalism and sculpture. As Chief Executive of Open City until 2024, Phineas’ led far-reaching and impactful change across the organisation steering the charity through the challenges of the pandemic while transforming and growing its programmes. In a four year term as Director, they built, grew and launched award-winning new educational and cultural initiatives, oversaw major digital infrastructure upgrades and secured the charity’s largest ever public grant and corporate sponsorships. They successfully rebuilt Open City’s reserves to record levels while delivering above-inflation pay rises, and recruiting a more diverse staff team and board.

Phineas’ career is marked by a long-standing commitment to making architecture and heritage more engaging and accessible to younger and more diverse audiences. For example as Deputy Director of the Architecture Foundation they co-founded the New Architecture Writers programme in collaboration with the historian Tom Wilkinson which has transformed the landscape of architectural criticism in the UK.

In 2019 Phineas co-curated the Oslo Architecture Triennale on the theme of degrowth, and curated the 19th Architecture Prize of the Land Steiermark in Austria. Currently a columnist at Dezeen, alongside writing, their work spans kinetic sculpture, film and print making, and has be exhibited at the Royal Academy in London, the Architecture Biennale in Venice and the London School of Economics.

Colin Mitchell

Colin is a marketing consultant with over 30 years of experience. He was Chief Strategy Officer for Ogilvy, a major international ad agency, for many years and led global marketing (reporting to the CEO) for McDonald’s. He grew up in Scotland, has lived in the US and currently splits his time between Chicago and London. Colin’s father was a Town Planner and instilled a love of architecture and preservation.

Colin is active in DoCoMoMo US and has toured and read widely to study the modern movement. He brings business, branding and American non-profit experience as well as passion for protection to C20.

Peter Parkes

Peter is a Group Product Manager at Miro, a teams-based visual workspace platform. Prior to joining Miro, he co-founded Qualdesk, building software for design and product teams to help them be more productive.

His career to date has spanned strategy consulting, product marketing and corporate communications, with a focus on mass-market consumer technology products, both now at Miro and previously at Skype and Expedia and for clients at Made by Many. He has an MA in Economics from the University of Cambridge, specialising in the intersection of economics and psychology, writing about economic modelling of human behaviour and decision-making processes.