London of the Future

​Heard of the London Society? Not many people have - but they are about to!
 
The Society was founded in 1912 to advance “the practical improvement and artistic development of London”. Luminaries such as architects Sir Edwin Lutyens, Reginald Blomfield, Beresford Pite, Raymond Unwin and the artist Frank Brangwyn were involved in its conception largely to provide a forum for better planning in the capital. Raffles Davison speaking in 1914 said “the chief issue is ... the good of London, its orderly and beautiful development, its general amenity as a place for business or pleasure.”
 

Sir Aston Webb, a Previous President of the RIBA and President of the Royal Academy wrote the introduction to London of the Future, published by the Society in 1921, which looked at the future of roads, bridges, the Channel Tunnel, the embankment of the Surrey side of the Thames from Borough to Lambeth, housing, the East End, and parks and open spaces - issues that are familiar to anyone involved in the changing face of London today. Webb wrote that first and foremost the role of the Society was to “interest Londoners in London”.
 
The Society was formed in a period when planning as we know it today was virtually non-existent and London’s Governance was in a mess - despite the fact that it was the largest city in the world and the capital of the Great British Empire.
 
A hundred years later the world is very different - we have a sophisticated and complex planning system and London governance is in reasonable shape. Even so, we have even greater need to interest Londoners in London and the positive aspects of change, particularly at this time when London is about to undergo its greatest period of growth since the 1930s as the population rockets from eight to ten million people.
 
A few months ago, the Society was planning to wind itself up, the Committee and much of the membership had grown older and had run out of the energy to keep it going. One member wrote to the NLA and asked if we could help to rescue it.
 
My initial response was that the NLA covers a lot of the ground once covered by the Society. But the NLA is essentially a body of professionals and I soon came to realise that there is no group that reflects the wide range of opinions of all those Londoners, lay and professional, who have a real interest in the environment of the capital.
 
We have put together a great new committee including such luminaries as Peter Bishop, former Head of Design for London, Peter Barber, Paul Finch, of the Architect’s Journal and Design Council CABE,
Kathryn Firth of the London Legacy Development Corporation and Eric Reynolds of Urban Space Management and this year plan to get the Society back on track.
 
While the precise role of the Society today must be very different from that of the 1920s, the basic concepts remain the same. Its role in 2014 needs to be redefined and its membership expanded to include more younger members. We need to build up numbers from the current 900 and would hope that the NLA community can assist us in that task.
 
I look at New York’s Metropolitan Arts Society and its motto “the voice for the future of our city” and see what the London Society could once again become.
"The aim is to create a body of public opinion, so catholic in its outlooks, and so well judged in its action, that London may be guided by the best of all good counsels” so wrote Raffles Davidson a hundred years ago. That remains our aim today. I hope you will help us. ​