More Brick Lane Events
Our spring sale with all titles in the Spitalfields Life Bookshop at half price continues until Easter Monday. Enter ‘SPRING’ at checkout to claim your discount. Click here to visit the Spitalfields Life online bookshop
We are delighted to announce new webinars in the ongoing Spitalfields Trust series as part of the campaign to Save Brick Lane. Below you will find films of the first two events in case you missed them.
Visit www.battleforbricklane.com
HOUSE OF ANNETTA, SITE OF RESISTANCE
7pm Tuesday 13th April
Louis Schulz of ASSEMBLE introduces ANNETTA’S HOUSE, a new centre for campaigning and resistance against exploitative development.
25 Princelet St in Spitalfields was the home of the architect, cybernetician, conservationist, builder, beekeeper, and campaigner ANNETTA PEDRETTI until her death in 2018. An obsessive polymath, her work has been all but forgotten.
Her large home has been given to charity and is now to be used as a social centre for all, and a base for mounting a resistance against proprietarian society, and campaigning for land reform and housing justice for all.
In this talk Louis Shulz, from the Turner Prize winning architecture collective ASSEMBLE, who are leading the project, will discuss what we know of Annetta’s life and work, as well as plans to harness the site – forever removed from the flow of land speculation and inheritance – as a place that can catalyse a resistance against the relentless top-down redevelopment of the city.
Click here to register for free for HOUSE OF ANNETTA, A SITE OF RESISTANCE
A CATALOGUE OF PLANNING DISASTERS IN SPITALFIELDS
7pm Tuesday 6th April
Planning & Heritage Expert, ALEC FORSHAW examines the appalling history of bad planning decisions in Spitalfields.
In recent years, Spitalfields has faced a wave of soulless corporate development spreading from the City of London, inflicting ugly steel and glass blocks that are entirely at odds with the narrow streets of old brick buildings.
First it was the Spitalfields Market, then the Fruit & Wool Exchange and Norton Folgate, and now the wave has reached the historic Truman Brewery.
In this humorous illustrated lecture, Alec shows how the same mistakes have been repeated over and over in Spitalfields, exploring what can be done to prevent this onslaught in future and discussing how more responsible planning could benefit the area and the community.
Click here to register for free for A CATALOGUE OF PLANNING DISASTERS
Watch THE HISTORY OF THE TRUMAN BREWERY
Long-term local resident and co-founder of the Spitalfields Trust, DAN CRUICKSHANK, traces the histories of the families who managed the brewery through four centuries, the largest in the world before it closed in 1989.
Watch THE THREAT TO BRICK LANE, HEARTLAND OF BRITISH BANGLADESHI CULTURE
A discussion of Brick Lane’s cultural significance for the Bangladeshi community, its history and the challenges which threaten it.
Speakers include PROFESSOR CLAIRE ALEXANDER, author of the Runnymede Trust report Beyond Banglatown -Continuity, change and new urban economies in Brick Lane, DR FATIMA RAJINA and TASNIMA UDDIN, co-founders of Radical Socialist Bangladeshi Group , and COUNCILLOR ABDAL ULLAH, founder of the BBPI Foundation, whose first address was Brick Lane.
From the photo, Annetta’s home was – or is it still? – in desperate need of rehab. Why didn’t an architect restore it? Or did she? Is there more to this story? What’s worth saving can and should be saved, not allowed to fall into ruin.
Thank you so much for the webinar on the history of Trumans, it brings back so many memories for me, and tears to my eyes to see how it has been devastated.
I worked at Trumans briefly in 1983 / 1984 as a temp (accounts clerk) while looking for a proper job. My morning commute was walking down Brick lane, and I discovered the fascinating history of the area.
The Brewery still made local deliveries by horse and cart. Access to the site was indeed closely guarded, and I met locals who were always surprised to see me walking around inside, as their other contact with me was when I was helping my dad out at the post office on Salmon Lane in Poplar. I was allowed the privilege of writing in the petty cash ledger (huge folios dating back hundreds of years), which I was scared of defacing and spoiling with my school girl hand compared to the beautiful copper plate writing of previous years. I now realise that my entry was probably one of the last few entries in the ledger – I wonder what happened to it – probably in a skip and buried in landfill somewhere…
Thank you for your efforts to preserve a part of history so that it does not become one more bit of concrete and glass.
In response to Sonia’s comment – Annetta was in the process of restoring the house but she obviously had so many other creative projects on the go at the same time that she never actually finished any rooms. Louis from Assemble will be able to give you more details in his talk, and tell you of what they are planning to do with the house in a way which will keep Annetta’s spirit alive and inspirational.
I think it is going to become a tremendous asset, not only acting as a catalyst for resistance against the destruction of the Spitalfileds area by soulless corporate developments, but also as a place where all the different grass root community groups can come together to share their experiences and support each other in the battle for Brick Lane.