Lecture by Tessa Boase on how inter-war civic architecture, from lidos to housing schemes, was used to improve everyday life.
Tessa Boase will be at The Abbey Theatre on Wednesday 8 September 2027, with her talk The Architecture of Optimism: Building Health & Happiness between the Wars. It's part of The Green House's programme of talks, workshops, clubs and repair events, so it sits alongside a wider run of things they've got going on.
Boase looks at the inter-war years, a time of bold and urgent experiments in social engineering through architecture. Back then, 'moral uplift' and 'optimism' became the buzzwords of the day, set against the backdrop of the Great Depression. She'll take the room through lidos, libraries, housing schemes and concert halls, asking what civic architecture could actually do to transform the lives of ordinary people, and tracing the European design ideas that underpinned that era of civic optimism.
Boase herself is a freelance journalist, author, lecturer and campaigner, with a particular interest in uncovering the stories of invisible women from the 19th and early 20th centuries. She's written three social history books: The Housekeeper's Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House, Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds and London's Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams. She's also campaigned for public recognition of the female founders of the RSPB.
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The talk is at The Abbey Theatre, Westminster Lodge, Holywell Hill, St Albans, AL1 2DL. It starts at 10.30am, with doors open from 10.00am, and tickets are £7.50.
