In the Shadow of Senate House

In the Shadow of Senate House is a series of events planned by Henderson Downing, Esther Leslie, Victoria McNeile and myself, in and around Birkbeck College. It concentrates on Charles Holden's portland stone/granite monolith, and its many lives - as the Ministry of Information, as a statement by the University of London of its power and influence, as London's first skyscraper, as Orwell's Ministry of Truth, as the home of the most secure bunkers in London, as the fixed inverse of the transience of Bloomsbury's many hotels and boarding houses, as an emblem of Bloomsbury's supposedly un-English planning and rationalism, as a building which sits in an area of hidden political conflicts, from the re-use of squares and bombsites to the Chartists who assembled here in the 1840s, to the SOAS students who occupy in its shadow today.

In the Shadow of Senate House will involve the return of Kino Fist at the end of October (for a themed collection of films set in and around the tower - 1984, both in Nigel Kneale and Michael Radford's incarnations, Day of the Triffids and Death Line (and conceivably, The Hunger and Jeeves & Wooster, where it stands in for New York). There will be public lectures in December, and at some point (hopefully) an exhibition of speculative and historical images of the tower. So far the only thing we have scheduled is two walks in early October. On Saturday October 3 Victoria McNeile will be leading a walk round the area in Senate House's immediate shadow, investigating it 'in the context of space over time – and in time over space...a local geography (in its broadest sense) informed by ideas that resonate locally: education, architecture, privacy and overlooking, religion, privilege and exclusion.' On the day after, Sunday October 4, I'll be taking people round the tube stations Charles Holden designed (in a very different style) at the same time as the Senate House. Both will involve some sort of fancy handout. More details of all of these things soon, but in the meantime if anyone has any ideas, contributions or what have you e-mail me at owenhatherley(at)gmail.com...