Tom Spriggs Architect Ltd is proudly a member of the Twentieth Century Society. The Society, originally founded as the Thirties Society “…exists to safeguard the heritage of architecture and design in Britain from 1914 onwards.”
Older buildings and urban areas have long been protected by Conservation Areas and Listed Building status’s (Even though some still get destroyed/ruined by demolition or poor alteration). The Victorian Society has a similar mantra for the earlier period up to 1914.
The Twentieth Century Society’s goals serve to protect and educate about high quality more modern design that otherwise may be overlooked by ill-informed, lazy or greedy developers, planners, councils, owners and architects too.
Their work goes to try and protect major iconic buildings such as Battersea power station, as well as the commonly sighted red phone box, all part of our rich heritage worthy of preservation. Their work has gone into saving or protecting numerous iconic buildings, some by being lobbied to get Listed status, some by finding new owners like the National Trust or the Tate Modern museum in London.
We are losing modern buildings as they fall out of fashion or disrepair, yet some of us are already beginning to look back on them with nostalgia. Once they are gone, they are lost forever, and great consideration should be made before any demolition is carried out. Concrete brutalism of the 1970s may no longer be shiny and new, but most have merit, and some are highly sculptural. Poor maintenance leads them to look a bit shabby, but their fine lines and proportions are worthy artefacts of a bygone era of our history. If we were to apply the same level of poor maintenance for 40 years to some of the cheap-is-best rendered replacements built today, I’m sure they would not stand the test of time so well.
As a member you not only support the work of the staff in preparing casework and lobbying for saving our recent architecture heritage, but also receive a well informed, well written magazine, and periodic journal.