If notable buildings at risk touch a nerve with you, also check out: Historic London Buildings Facing Demolition Right Now.
Three London buildings feature in the C20 Society's roll call of the top 10 buildings at risk in 2023.
The list — a subjective collection of the most notable at risk buildings, rather than those most at risk of all — names the Museum of London and Bastion House; Westminster's Channel 4 headquarters; and the Jagonari Centre in Whitechapel. (So in fact, if you count the Museum of London and Bastion House as separate entities, that's four London buildings.)
The proposed demolition of the now-vacated Museum of London and the nearby brooding Bastion House is highly controversial, not least because campaigners believe the 1970s buildings should be retrofitted, rather than bulldozed. The London Wall museum building is the work of architects Powell & Moya — behemoths in the postwar building boom, and responsible for the South Bank's long-gone Skylon, and Chichester Festival Theatre.
Though some commercial staff remain located in the Richard Rogers-designed Channel 4 Headquarters following the broadcaster's move to Leeds in 2019, the C20 Society is concerned that if the on-off threatened privatisation of Channel 4 ever does happen, this building with striking 'inside-out' touches could be one of the first assets to go. That, in turn, could lead to redevelopment or major alteration — which is why the C20 Society wants to see it listed.
Probably the least-known London building on the list, the Jagonari Centre was designed by Matrix, an all-female collective of architects, as a Bengali women's resource centre. Its special details, including mosaics and decorative 'jali' window grilles, are now said to be under threat, since the centre closed in 2015, and was taken over by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for other uses.
Elsewhere in the UK, the C20 Society list names pyramid-shaped The Point in Milton Keynes, and the art deco Riviera Hotel in Weymouth.
