30 CONTEXT 188 : JUNE 2026 Perhaps this tide has turned: we are currently much heartened by the listing of the outstandingly significant South Bank Centre, where the current DCMS heritage minister Baroness Twycross has reversed 35 years of previous refusals to follow Historic England advice. However, the listing of the social housing remains fraught. Catherine Croft is director of the Twentieth Century Society. The highly influential and award-winning Donnybrook Quarter (Peter Barber, 2006) faces UPVC window replacement. Were listing not to intervene to prevent this, it would seem that we have gone backwards since the internationally pioneering listing in 1993 of the Alexandra Road Estate (Neave Brown of Camden Architects’ Department, 1972–78), which was then only 15 years post-completion. The prominent inclusion of a large fragment of the Robin Hood Gardens Estate (Alison and Peter Smithson, 1972) in the recently opened and hugely popular V&A Storehouse is surely a cautionary indictment of the decision not to list that. Making decisions without a full context is always going to be challenging. There is now a very overdue need for a return to a more strategic approach to listing recent heritage, ideally along the same lines as the PWLSG project. In 2024 the C20 Society launched its self-initiated ‘Coming of Age’ project, whereby we pick 10 buildings each year reaching the 30-year threshold. We choose buildings that we believe will have popular appeal and support, that reflect changing patterns of society and architectural development, and that tell good stories.We would very much like all 10 buildings to be fully assessed each year, not least to create a positive and celebratory story about emerging heritage, discrete from contested narratives of planning battles. We include Scottish and Welsh candidates, as well as English ones. Designating all 10 each year in a coordinated annual ‘honours list’ would help bring the every-updating UK-wide listing process the wider public prominence it deserves, alongside the BAFTAs and the Booker Prize. A fragment of the facade of the Smithsons’ Robin Hood Gardens, now on display at the V&A East Storehouse. The building was never listed. (Photo: Mikey Massey) Shoreditch Fire Station, Hackney. Historic England’s listing recommendation was overturned by the minister (Photo: Dave Lowe)
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