A Celebration of the Architecture of Public Service

The rise and fall of public service architecture as a genre, with its associated codes of architectural practice and aesthetic intentions, is the focus of the Twentieth Century Society’s new journal The Architecture of Public Service.

Join us to celebrate its publication and learn more about the libraries, fire stations, health centres, town halls and police stations which have been making a distinctive contribution to the streetscapes of Britain since 1914.

The Museum is at the rear of the G11 listed moderne style Fire station (former Brigade Headquarters of the London Fire Brigade). Built in 1937 by the London County Council to the design of EP Wheeler, Architect to the LCC. The complex comprised the administrative headquarters of London firefighting, residential quarters, a working fire station with a whole range of staff facilities, a drill parade ground, drill tower, and a training school and maintenance workshops at the rear, also combined with flats. The museum is housed in the former maintenance workshops.

Our speakers for the evening include the journal’s editors Alan Powers, author and lecturer at NYU London and the London School of Architecture and Elain Harwood, author and historian with Historic England. They will be introduced by Timothy Brittain-Catlin, author, architect and architectural historian at the University of Kent and deputy chair of the C20 Society.

The collective memory of a district can be intimately bound up in the fabric of a building like a public library or town hall, used with affection by generations. With privatisation of these and other arms of local and national government that once extended reassuringly to the High Streets of the country, the loss of such buildings or their insensitive conversion has been a growing concern to the C20 Society. The Architecture of Public Service fills major gaps in our understanding. Many of the essays have grown out of the Society's casework and events programme, enriched with archive images and new photography