Sharing the untold stories of London

For 131 years the Survey of London has unearthed the hidden stories of our capital’s buildings. Now they’re telling a story of explosive growth – the story of UCL.

In John Summerson’s heyday during the 1930s and 1940s, the Survey was a means to protect endangered buildings. Since 1894, a motley collection of architects, amateurs and enthusiasts (supported by the London County Council) had been diligently cataloguing the capital’s most important built landmarks.

Interweaving their painstaking maps and drawings with social and cultural insights, the Survey was used to strengthen the case for preserving these valuable buildings and places, as well as providing an ‘emergency list’ of those under imminent threat.

After the Town and Country Planning Acts of 1944 and 1947, when buildings of historical interest became listed and protected, the purpose and scope of the Survey changed.

Colin Thom, who, as Director of the Survey of London at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture, has devoted more than 30 years to this remarkable endeavour, explains how these changes led to the development of a research project unlike anything else in the world.

“Once listing came in, and that emergency recording aspect of the Survey’s work was no longer needed, it could quite easily have stopped altogether.

“Instead, they changed tack, and the Survey became a professional work of urban history. Now it was the story of all the buildings. Not just the ones deemed worthy of listing, but people’s terraced houses, their corner pubs, their schools. They documented the processes that brought these buildings into being, and the kind of people and industries that moved into and out of the area.

“It became more about explaining London to Londoners, and telling the story of how the city has developed in the way it has.”

The untold story of UCL’s urban impact

UCL’s own Bloomsbury site has been covered before in the Survey — back in 1949, as part of Volume 21 which explored Tottenham Court Road and the parish of St Pancras.

There are still areas of London (particularly south of the Thames) which haven’t yet been examined — so why are the Survey’s historians choosing to reinvestigate Bloomsbury?

One of the main reasons for the new monograph is the radical changes to the area brought about by UCL itself. From the brief glimpse offered in Volume 21 of a bombed-out Wilkins Building and Main Quadrangle on Gower Street, UCL’s campus has rapidly expanded to encompass a significant part of London’s Bloomsbury district, fundamentally changing the character of the area.

Next year marks the 200^th anniversary of UCL’s foundation, and our bicentenary provided further impetus for the creation of a Bloomsbury monograph — an undertaking that was begun by Dr Amy Spencer, who joined the Survey team at The Bartlett School of Architecture in 2015.

Amy is understandably excited about the opportunity to share the architectural history of UCL — an account that some feel is long overdue.

“While the architectural histories of other universities like Edinburgh and Glasgow have been the subject of recent monographs, this aspect of UCL’s history has been neglected. In this first complete account, we’ll be tracing the adaptation and construction of buildings in parallel with changes in education, society and technology.

“We’ll also be addressing some significant gaps in knowledge, and clearing up some misapprehensions, too.” 

Much of what’s been written about UCL’s architecture so far has been heavily focused on the way the neoclassical design of the Wilkins Building and Main Quadrangle reflects the secular principles on which UCL was founded. Amy explains why.

“Before UCL was established, if you wanted a degree you had to subscribe to the tenets of the Anglican Church. In contrast, UCL was founded as a university that would be open to people of any creed or faith.

“So, there’s always been a lot of interest in connecting these founding values to the neoclassical style, which is associated with ancient Greece and Rome, rather than Christian societies and culture.

“However, at the time of UCL’s construction, neoclassical architecture was a popular style for institutional buildings – the General Post Office and the Bank of England are also strong examples. So that secular connection isn’t insignificant... but it is probably overstressed.”