Rowan Moore

EVENT: Millennium Architecture lecture 📆 Thu 29 Oct 2026, 6:30-7:45pm 📍 Cowcross Street Gallery, EC1M + Online 🎫 Book tickets: secure.c20society.org.uk/Def… Our Autumn Lecture Series on 21st Century Architecture continues this week, with leading critic Rowan Moore providing an overview on Millennium Architecture. Think Tate Modern, the Eden Project, the Wales Millennium Centre, the Lowry, or National Centre for Popular Music. These breath-taking feats of design and engineering provided new public spaces, vantage points and emblems for our country. But how have the landmarks of the new millennium stood the test of time? We’ll explore the vision and commitment behind their creation, the intense media coverage and public debate that followed, and discuss their burgeoning legacy a quarter of a century on. • @RowanMoore is architecture critic of @ObserverUK and was named Critic of the Year at the UK press awards. He is the author of Slow Burn City: London in the Twenty-First Century (2016, Picador) and Property: The myth that built the world (2023, Faber&Faber). • The event is chaired by Laura Mark @architecture critic, former Architect's Journal editor and current Head of Casework at C20.

🚨BREAKING NEWS: We're absolutely delighted that Lambeth Council Cabinet members have just voted to save Central Hill Estate and Cressingham Gardens from a planned demolition. This follows a near 15 year-long battle led by residents and the @SaveCressingham and @savecentralhill campaigns, with four separate judicial reviews and an independent inquiry. The Council found a comprehensive redevelopment of the two 1960s estates to no longer be financially viable and have instead promised an approach that will 'maintain existing homes, return empty properties to use and deliver genuinely affordable homes while respecting the borough’s architectural heritage.' The surprising development follows a change in control at the Council after the May local elections, with the Green Party winning the most seats. The council was previously taking forward their Estate Renewal Programme through the development company Homes for Lambeth. The 2022 Kerslake Review recommended closing down the company and the programme was brought back in-house under direct council control. The pair of post-war social housing schemes have been C20's Risk List since 2017 and 2021 respectively, and were the subject of several unsuccessful listing applications by the Society as far back as 2016. The Society's Director, Catherine Croft, commented: "We are overjoyed that good sense has finally prevailed. Both estates show post-war social housing at its most humane and sensitive; understated yet intelligently detailed and making the most of beautiful, verdant sites. While the work of Camden architect Neave Brown has long been celebrated and recognised with numerous listing designations and conservation areas, the work of Ted Hollamby and his team at Lambeth (including Rosemary Stjernstedt, Roger Westman, and Charles Attwood) has been bafflingly overlooked. Not only are these buildings of great historic interest, but they are much loved, practical homes which could serve as exemplar for today’s housing crisis. They now need to be appropriately upgraded and cared for, so they can continue to can continue to serve and bring pleasure to future generations."