C20 Magazine Issue 2024 2

The 2024/02 issue of C20, the magazine of the Twentieth Century Society, looks at a conservation success story which is very much the result of local enthusiasm, tenacity and commitment: restoring Brighton and Hove’s 1938 Saltdean Lido. Described by English Heritage as ‘one of the seven wonders of the English seaside’, it was disfigured in wartime and closed in 1995, until a long, exemplary restoration began in 2017.

The magazine notes that the 30-year rule for listing means that important buildings completed in 1994 are now eligible for protection. It points out that some proactivity might be desirable in identifying important buildings that will be eligible for protection in the next, say, two to five years. Given the pace of commercial development in particular, there seems no guarantee that buildings of high merit of the last three decades may be secured from loss or unsympathetic alteration. The magazine asks: why wait until the bulldozers roll in to make a move to save younger buildings? The society’s new campaign is to take action on that issue.

The Winter 2024 issue has an article about the life and legacy of inspired modernist architect Carlo Scarpa, with particular reference to his home city of Venice. There is a very entertaining article about the architectural cartoonist Louis Hellman, who some IHBC members with long memories and a suitable wall (I’m one) will recall having produced an edition of memorable signed cartoon prints celebrating ‘The Conservation Officer’, to coincide with the transition from the Association of Conservation Officers to the IHBC in 1997.

This article originally appeared in the Institute of Historic Building Conservation’s (IHBC’s) Context 183, published in March 2025.

--Institute of Historic Building Conservation

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• Conservation area.
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• IHBC articles.
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