6 CONTEXT 180 : JUNE 2024 wants the network to help balance the narrative, because historic resorts need interest from new visitors. She concludes positively that perceptions about the British seaside are changing, with a recognition of the rich heritage of pleasure resorts, and that this can be a force for change in places that have been overlooked. More information can be accessed at ‘The neglected heritage of the seaside holiday’ in Coastal Studies and Society by Duncan Light and Anya Chapman. C20 The second 2023 issue of C20, the magazine of the Twentieth Century Society, marks the passing of Sir Michael Hopkins with a fine, illustrated survey of a number of his key buildings, noting which are already listed and which deserve to be listed but are not. It is pointed out that, when it comes to preserving the legacy of Britain’s high-tech trailblazing architects, some assurance can be gained from Hopkins’ work having an edge over some of his contemporaries on the basis that some were commissioned by establishment clients for their own long-term use and constructed with very high-quality materials. The society notes with regret its failure to persuade the DCMS to list Portcullis House, Westminster (‘one of the most ingenious and highly crafted design solutions of the late 20th century’), and that 22 Shad Thames in London (built for the designer and manufacturer David Mellor and subsequently acquired by Sir Terence Conran as his company headquarters) has faced the threat of a substantially harmful extension. This demonstrates to the society how vital it is that it continues to lobby on behalf of all such modern buildings of merit. The issue’s eclectic range of material includes a photographic essay about the forgotten brutalist architecture of mid-20th-century Hong Kong; an article about the beautifully crafted, meticulously detailed and unaltered Grade II*- listed 1930s home of Lucy Archer, the daughter and biographer of the architect Raymond Erith, and an exquisite restrained Soanian design by her father in Suffolk White brick; and an article entitled ‘Going Gaga for Modernism’ by Carlos Finley, who suggests that, although architecture has always had a role in pop music aesthetic, recent releases suggest a modernist revival. Finley has produced a short playlist of both album art and music videos, identifying associated locations. He concludes that a new generation of stars continues to push 20th-century architecture into the foreground, and to vast audiences, giving these buildings the limelight they deserve. SPAB Magazine In the Spring 2024 issue of the SPAB Magazine, SPAB director Matthew Slocombe meditates on the considerable concerns aroused by the proposed redevelopment of Liverpool Street Station, London. Although it falls outside the date range for casework notifiable to the SPAB, Slocombe makes an interesting observation about heritage campaigning and the need for collective responses to significant threats. He notes that redevelopment of the massive Broadgate office complex close to the society’s headquarters at Spital Square came at a time when the SPAB’s focus had been distinctly rural. The then secretary, Philip Venning, wrote of the enthusiasm of the public response to the SPAB Barns Campaign, concluding that the society had chosen the right campaign at the right time. Slocombe states that many lessons can still be drawn from that campaign. Foremost, perhaps, is that one organisation alone cannot expect to turn the tide, and that this is likely to be true at Liverpool Street. Residential barn conversions became increasingly common in the 1980s, despite SPAB objections, and they dominated the SPAB’s case work throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. SPAB was able improve outcomes, with the best examples of barns protected; design guidance introduced; and repair and maintenance grants secured. This issue also addresses another campaigning issue in the making: the question of the selloff of churches in Scotland. The SPAB considers that it applies the lessons of the Barns Campaign to campaigning in the coming years. With Church of Scotland churches having lost around 80 per cent of their attendees since the 1950s, the closure of some churches is becoming inevitable. The magazine highlights Scotland’s church sales, and explains the collaborative work being undertaken to offer informed and pragmatic solutions to the problem. The disposal of churches throws up many wider questions for religious observance and its place in society. Most pressing
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