The Twentieth Century Society Visit Website  Contact Details Co-ordinator, Twentieth Century Society, 70 Cowcross Street, London, EC1M 6EJ
Tel: 020 7250 3857
Fax: 020 7251 8985
About The Twentieth Century Society exists to safeguard the heritage of architecture and design in Britain from 1914 onwards. One of the Society’s prime objectives is education, with education comes appreciation. With conservation, another prime objective comes the continued opportunity for extending our knowledge about those buildings or artifacts, whether important or humble, rare or commonplace as the red telephone kiosk, that characterise the Twentieth Century in Britain. As a result of our lobbying over the past twenty years, many buildings have already been saved. A notable success in 1993-4 was our campaign to persuade the National Trust to take on the Hampstead house of the Hungarian emigré architect Ernö Goldfinger, at 2 Willow Road, NW3, making it available for visitors. We hope other important modern houses will also be opened to the public in this manner in the course of time. The new Tate Gallery, housed in a spectacular Thameside building by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott at Bankside opened in 2000 and contains the Nation’s collection of modern works by non-British artists. Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron of Basle won the competition for the design of the new building in 1997. Bankside Power Station, as it was known until decommissioning in 1970, is a powerful work by Scott, dominating the Southwark skyline. The Conservative government turned down our request for listing the building several times, despite the clear merits of the building. Finding this new use for it has saved it for the Nation. Prejudice and taste in architecture and design is fickle. In 1979, modernism was dominant, and the Thirties Society provided a counterbalance by its focus on other styles. Ten years later, the position was perhaps almost reversed, but by the end of the last century, the pendulum of architectural taste had swung back again. Nevertheless, under both our names and at all times, we have tried to create understanding of and appreciation of the best of all kinds of buildings erected in Britain in the 20th century.
Publications As part of our work to protect the best of architecture and design after 1914, we publish a range of tour notes, journals and other publications. Over the years we have run hundreds of architecture walks and tours all over Britain and beyond. We can still supply the notes for many of these as useful guidance and background for your own visits. Twentieth Century Architecture (free to members) is a scholarly journal published about once a year. Each issue of around 160 pages tackles a general topic (such as housing or conservation) in depth, with specially commissioned articles by experts in the field, accompanied by high quality illustrations. Most past issues are still available. You can also order copies of past journals published under our previous name, the Thirties Society. A number of other books, catalogues and reports are also available. We run a full programme of events to help people learn more about 20th century architecture. These events also help to raise general public awareness of important post-1914 buildings and fund our campaigning work. They include walks, coach trips and lectures.
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