This viewpoint will reveal how Senate House, notable for the “strangely semi-traditional, undecided modernism” that puzzled Pevsner, provided inspiration for George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

In this viewpoint, Bevin Court – originally to be called Lenin Court – offers a lens for understanding how architectural modernism went from a movement associated with communist architects from abroad to a symbol of the British welfare state.

This viewpoint will uncover how modernist animal housing was used as a prototype for bold new homes for British citizens, under the guidance of Julian Huxley and other visionaries.

The viewpoint deals with four Greater London Council housing blocks – two in Tower Hamlets and a second pair in Westminster, where the architects employed an experimental plastics building system in their design and construction. More latterly, the buildings were involved in the “Homes for Votes” scandal in the 1980s, which has received renewed attention in the light of the Grenfell Tower disaster.