Rethinking Euston Arch: Fossil Fuels, Architecture, and the Scrambling of History

Dr Aleksandr Bierig is giving a talk on the history of Victorian architecture, with Euston Station as his case study, on Tuesday 3 November from 6:30pm to 8:00pm. It's an online-only webcast, so you can tune in from home. Bierig is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, and he's using Euston — the world's first major metropolitan railway terminus — as a way to look at the relationship between architecture and energy.

Euston is a familiar landmark for anyone who's spent time in London, but it's also a signal monument in the history of the Victorian Society. The talk traces the architects, writers, artists and historians who grappled with the station's over-scaled and unsettled form, and frames it as a lens through which to consider how architecture and energy together offer new ways to read familiar histories. It's a look at the Victorian era from an angle you don't often hear about — the fuel that powered the age and the buildings that rose around it.

If the 3 November date doesn't work, there are plenty of other chances to catch it. The talk is repeated on Tuesday 10, 17 and 25 November, and then on Tuesday 1 and Wednesday 2, 8 and 9 December. That's a good run of dates across November and early December, so you can pick whichever evening suits you best. Booking is required to watch, and it runs from 6:30pm to 8:00pm each time.