Twentieth Century Society

07/10/2026

🗓️ For October’s Building of the Month, Clare St George explores Herbert Shepherd’s Paddington Library (1923-29), and the importance of saving those buildings that play a secondary role to the activity taking place within them.

✍🏼 'Paddington Library is at the end of my road. It is no Bibliothèque Nationale, nor Biblioteca Vasconcelos, but it is an essential part of civic life in Bayswater, my neighbourhood in West London. Situated within the Porchester Centre – a relatively well-preserved Classical Beaux-Arts building designed in the 1920s – Paddington Library has witnessed and been subject to the changing demographics and technologies of reading through the twentieth century.'

➡️ Read more on the C20 website: https://c20society.org.uk/building-of-the-month/paddington-library-westminster

Images © 1.The Blowup, Unsplash CC0; 2. Murray Clarke; 3-8, Westminster Archives

06/10/2026

NEWS: C20 is extremely disappointed to learn that a Certificate of Immunity from listing has been issued by DCMS for 10 Cabot Square in Canary Wharf.

Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) in a Chicago style Beaux-Arts revival and built 1988-91, the Society had argued it is the finest example of this type of architecture remaining in Canary Wharf and strongly recommended a Grade II designation.

Historic England’s list report acknowledges the ‘unmistakable expense and ambition’ of the building, reserving particular praise for the arcade, stone-clad base, Baroque treatment of the principal entrances, the mahogany shopfronts with coloured glass lanterns, and lavish surviving interiors, concluding ‘its grandeur and scale are convincing’.

However, the report goes on to criticise the ‘superficiality of its architecture’, ultimately recommending that it fails to meet the criteria for listing and stating ‘the form and massing are unremarkable; its proportions and detail struggle to maintain conviction above the second floor, and the architectural vigour at the base is not matched by its termination and skyline’.

The building is currently subject to a planning application that if consented would see it largely demolished, with only the foundations and structural frame retained. C20 has formally objected to the Howells-led scheme, which is yet to be determined by Tower Hamlets.

Developer Olympia & York’s requirement for Canary Wharf was that it was ‘quintessentially Postmodern...rooted in place and time, it had not only to look as if it was an established part of London but that it had evolved over time’.

10 Cabot Square is resolutely turn-of-the-century American in its stylings, with Sullivan-like ornament and a high-quality façade system of brick and stone clad panels, meeting more traditionally British features such as the arcades, inspired by enclosed passages off Piccadilly.

The building is historically important and an exceptionally well-designed synthesis of the early Chicago skyscraper and its London context. Its loss to Canary Wharf and the built-environment of this uniquely planned area of the city would be profound.

05/10/2026

Join C20 for Hot off the press: Architectural magazines study day

🗓️Saturday 7 November 2026, 9am - 6pm
📍 Cowcross Street Gallery, Farringdon
🎟️ Book tickets via the Events link in our bio

Valeria Carullo, the curator at RIBA Photographs Collection, runs a study day on the role of architecture magazines – such as Architectural Design, L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui and Casabella – in disseminating ideas and knowledge.

Subjects and speakers include:

• Der Baumeister: Everyday Practices of Publishing Architecture
By Dr Sarah Borree, visiting junior professor of architectural theory and history at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf

• Italian Modernism: Casabella in the 1930s
By Valeria Carullo on Championing

• Focus: architectural activism through a little magazine
By Dr Elizabeth Darling, independent architectural historian and curator

• A Hungarian Look to the International: Virgil Bierbauer’s Editorial Activities at the Journal Tér és Forma in Interwar Hungary
By Ágnes Anna Sebestyén, curator at the Hungarian Museum of Architecture and Monument Protection Documentation Centre, Budapest

• Architecture d’aujourd’hui, from ‘voice of the avant-garde’ to the ‘Queen Mother of architectural publications’
By Nicholas Bullock, former Professor of Architectural and Planning History of the 20th Century in Cambridge and Architectural Association lecturer

• The Architectural Review: criticism, commerce and culture
By Dr Jessica Kelly, Reader in Architectural and Design History at London Metropolitan University on

• A history of British architecture through a biography of Architectural Design
By Dr Stephen Parnell, independent architectural historian and part-time tutor at Leeds School of Architecture
Bercsényi 28–30: A Window to the Free World
By Dániel Kovács, curator of the post-1945 collections at the Hungarian Museum of Architecture and Monuments Protection Documentation Centre, Budapest

• Casabella 964: James Stirling
By Dr Marco Iuliano, Research Director of the Centre for Architecture and the Visual Arts, University of Liverpool School of Architecture on

03/10/2026

🎂 Happy 100th birthday to the Fazl Mosque in Southfields, Wandsworth. Opened on this day in October 1926, it was the first purpose-built mosque in London and only the second in Britain (after the Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking, 1889).

Designed by renowned firm TH Mawson & Sons, the building was Grade II listed in 2018 for its gentle, harmonious fusion of formal and decorative traditions of Islamic design and Mughal architectural forms, with restrained 1920s British classicism.

Despite the traditional appearance it was built using modern materials and construction methods, with some suggestion the design was influenced by the nearby twin towers of the Wembley British Empire Exhibition Stadium (1923).

30/09/2026

🗳️ To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Stirling Prize, is running a public vote to find out your favourite winner from the past three decades. Today (Sept 30) is the final chance to cast your vote: https://www.riba.org/explore/awards/awards-map/

One project has already been listed (The American Air Museum, Duxford - Foster + Partners) and another sadly demolished (Centenary Building, Manchester - Hodder + Partners), but these are some of the best buildings that defined their era. This is the built-heritage of the future.

📍The American Air Museum in Britain, Duxford, Cambridgeshire, by Foster + Partners, 1998 (Grade II*)

📍Natwest Media Centre (Lord’s Cricket Ground), by Future Systems, 1999

📍Peckham Library, Southwark, by Alsop & Störmer, 2000

📍Magna Centre, Sheffield, by WilkinsonEyre, 2001

📍Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Tyne and Wear, by WilkinsonEyre, 2002

📍Laban, Deptford, by Herzog & de Meuron, 2003

📍30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin), City of London, by Foster + Partners, 2004

📍The Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh, by EMBT / RMJM Ltd, 2005

📍Accordia, Cambridge, by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios LLP / Alison Brooks Architects / Maccreanor Lavington Architects, 2008

📍Maggie’s Centre, London, by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, 2009

📍Evelyn Grace Academy, Lambeth, by Zaha Hadid Architects, 2011

📍The Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge, by Stanton Williams, 2012

📍Astley Castle, Warwickshire, by Witherford Watson Mann Architects, 2013

📍Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, by Haworth Tompkins, 2014

📍 Burntwood School, Wandsworth, by AHMM, 2015

📍Newport Street Gallery, Vauxhall, by Caruso St John Architects, 2016

📍Hastings Pier, by dRMM Architects, 2017

📍Bloomberg, London, by Foster + Partners, 2018

📍Goldsmith Street, Norwich, by Mikhail Riches with Cathy Hawley, 2019

📍New Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge, by Níall McLaughlin Architects, 2022

29/09/2026

NEWS: The former Furniture Industry Research Association (FIRA) headquarters building in Stevenage has very sadly been demolished, to make way for…a Lidl.

C20 Society’s application to list the building was turned down in 2018 due to the extent of alteration from the original form. We argued it was designed with outward extension and expansion in mind, and was well suited to adaptive reuse. FIRA relocated from their purpose-built headquarters in 2021, after which the building has stood empty.

Designed by HKPA (Howell Killick Partridge & Amis) and opened in 1964, it contained workshops, laboratories and offices in a horizontal array of independent parts. It demonstrated HKPA’s instinct to disaggregate the brief into a cluster of cells, employing rigorous detailing to resolve the tricky junctions and create a unified whole. The complex had a consistent palette of white-painted brick, black timber and hardwood joinery, while a dwarf wall in shuttered concrete funnelled cars and pedestrians. Over the distinctive prismatic roofs rose a council chamber and its subsidiary spaces, expressed as rounded brick pods.

FIRA was founded in 1949 a direct result of the government’s measures for post-war reconstruction. The Second Word War led to a national reconfiguration of the furniture industry, redeploying labour and materials and requisitioning factories and warehouses. Rationing extended to ornament as the utility furniture scheme introduced approved designs in an austere Arts and Crafts vein. Government control over manufacture extended into peacetime to meet domestic consumption and revive the critical export market, with development boards such as FIRA established to restructure, rationalise and regulate industry.

Images © 1. Google; 2. Otto Saumarez-Smith; 3-4. Ed Buxton; 5-8. RIBA Pix; 9-10 Barbara Jones / Historic England

28/09/2026

EVENT: Join C20 for Polish architecture: from ruins to reconstruction 🇵🇱

🗓️ Wed 14 Oct 2026, 6:30-7:45pm
📍 Online
🎟️ Book tickets: https://secure.c20society.org.uk/Default.aspx?tabid=62&EventId=1352

When Poland regained independence in 1918, modern architecture exploded across the newly independent country - the capital, Warsaw, gained its first skyscraper, the Prudential (1933), and clubs with modern technology and revolving dance floors; the coastal fishing village of Gdynia was built up rapidly to become a modernist dream-city; Katowice became a ‘Polish Chicago’ for its Art Deco designs. But this was all to change as war erupted across the region once again in 1939, with the mass destruction of many buildings of Polish modernism across the country. Warsaw itself was razed almost to the ground.

Yet Poland’s architectural story did not stop there, and post-war, there were further efforts to rebuild the country, within its new, post-war borders, and under Soviet control. The rebuilding of Warsaw’s Old Town was a civic miracle, bolstered by the support of Poles from across Poland. Yet a socialist realism also took hold, including in the planned socialist realist settlement Nowa Huta in Kraków. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a new emphasis in architecture has emerged, including the rebuilding of lost interwar constructions, and the protection of twentieth century heritage.

• Juliette Bretan is a researcher, writer, and broadcaster focusing on Poland and Eastern Europe. She has recently finished a PhD at the University of Cambridge on depictions of Poland in English literature and has written for Newsweek, The Sunday Times, The Independent, The New Statesman, and other media, on Polish and Eastern European culture, politics, and history, as well as presenting on BBC Radio 3.

Image: Silesian Insurgents Memorial (1967, Gustaw Zemła & architect Wojciech Zabłocki) and Spodek arena (1971, Maciej Gintowt & Maciej Krasiński) in Katowice.

22/09/2026

21/09/2026

EVENT: Where are architects going on holiday? The best of mid-century cabins

🗓️ Tue 29 Sep 2026, 6:30pm—7:45pm
📍 Cowcross St Gallery + Online
🎟️ Book tickets: https://secure.c20society.org.uk/default.aspx?tabid=63

Join C20 and author Peter Halliday as he explores some of the most intriguing architect-designed holiday homes – from the famed seaside cabins by Le Corbusier to lesser known examples by Welsh architects Hird & Brooks.

An exploration of a largely forgotten but surprisingly extensive genre of modernist architecture, the holiday cabin – small, sparse, precise, and very close to nature. Today, the words ‘architect-designed holiday home’ may conjure up images of an indulgent cliff-top villa. Back in the post-war era, it was very different.

Many of the biggest names in architecture – the likes of Basil Spence, the Smithsons, and even Le Corbusier – designed their own holiday homes. And they typically went for basic, cabin-like structures: carefully considered, modestly sized, simply furnished, primarily constructed from wood, and very close to nature. The approach also spilled over into the mainstream, with several cabin park developers commissioning renowned architects to conjure up something special.

This talk explores a largely forgotten genre of modernist architecture. To set the scene, we look at several indicative examples from across the world. We then zero in on the work of celebrated Welsh architects Hird & Brooks. Although best known for a series of award-winning Danish-inspired modernist houses, the self-proclaimed highlight of their careers was their extensive work in holiday cabins.

Images: 1,6. Le Cabanon, Cap Modern - Le Corbusier, 1951 (c) Manuel Bougot and (c) Fondation Le Corbusier; 2. Hird & Brooks Welsh cabin, c1970s (c) Vince Jones; 3. E1027 Villa, Cap Moderne - Eileen Grey, 1926-29 (c) Manuel Bougot; 4. Upper Lawn, Wiltshire - Alison and Peter Smithson, 1958 (c) Historic England; 5,7. (c) Ian Brooks Collection; 8. House K, Nagano Prefecture - Kisho Kurokawa, 1973 (c) Rimowa

18/09/2026

💦 Following the recent listing of Cranhill Water Tower in Glasgow (1951) it’s time to the highlight the good work of the British Water Tower Appreciation Society (yes, really!) who are seeking new custodians to take them ‘upwards and onwards’.

Founded in 2006, the BWTAS has hosted exhibitions, led guided tours, given lectures, and earned the trust of tower owners, water authorities, and national heritage bodies. They even appeared as the infamous guest publication on Have I Got News For You, read by William Shatner.

Now they’re looking for three people to stand for election as volunteer chairman, secretary and treasurer at their forthcoming AGM and help renew the Society, or it risks being wound-up.

Their call-out states that they have a healthy bank balance, IP with genuine merchandising value, hundreds of members nationally (including many tower owners), and a web and social media presence that's been neglected but is far from beyond repair.

So whatever flavour your water tower - classical, modernist, Art Deco or brutalist - if you think you can help refill their tank, get in touch!

➡️ Email Nat Bocking, General Secretary, ([email protected]) for more information.

Image: Tonwell Water Tower, East Hertfordshire - Edmund Percey, 1964