You're Invited: A Lecture with Catherine Croft - "How They Save Significant Modern Buildings in Britain" & Learn Tactics To Preserve Your Neighborhood, Nov 23, 2009, 6 PM - 8 PM

Find out how they save significant Modern buildings in Britain (and learn tactics to preserve your neighborhood): A Lecture with Catherine Croft, Director of the Twentieth Century Society (UK)
http://hdc.org/blog/2009/11/16/learn-from-londonand-the-rest-of-the-u-k/

When: Monday, November 23, 6pm – 8pm
Where: Neighborhood Preservation Center (http://www.neighborhoodpreservationcenter.org/)
232 East 11th Street, Manhattan

It’s hard enough convincing the Powers-That-Be to preserve a historic building, but if that building is from the recent past, the effort required is enormous. In New York City, we’ve recently lost 2 Columbus Circle, the Patterson Silks Building and the Trylon Theater to name but a few and while some modern buildings have been saved (Guardian Life Annex, the Manufacturers Hanover Trust, Chase Manhattan Plaza), we can certainly use all the help we can get to protect our modern landmarks. HDC hopes you can join us for a special talk with our U.K. colleague, Catherine Croft, about preserving modern buildings.

Catherine Croft is the Director of the Twentieth Century Society, the national preservation advocacy organization which campaigns throughout Britain for the protection of significant buildings built after 1914. The Society was formed in 1979, and has been successful in several campaigns, including expanding the British national heritage listings to include modern buildings over thirty years instead of having a cut-off date of 1939.

Ms. Croft will speak about attitudes to 20th-century buildings in the UK, and the campaigns she is currently involved in. These range from public housing projects to the Saarinen-designed U.S. Embassy in London and from buildings which are universally popular to those that are generally reviled. The Society works through public advocacy, directed campaigns, educational programming, awareness building and scholarly research. In addition to her work with the Society, she is the author of Concrete Architecture and writes on conservation and new design issues for many magazines and journals.

This event is FREE to the public. Reservations are required, as space is limited. For more information, please contact the Historic Districts Council (http://www.hdc.org/) at (212) 614-9107 or hdc@hdc.org