After the
First World War the
University of London, then based at the
Imperial Institute in
Kensington was in urgent need of new office and teaching space to allow for its growth and expansion. In 1921, the government bought of land in
Bloomsbury from the
Duke of Bedford to provide a new site for the university. However, many within the university were opposed to a move, and, in 1926, the Duke bought back the land. However, the election of
William Beveridge to the post of
vice-chancellor of the university in June 1926 was highly significant as Beveridge supported a move to Bloomsbury. Beveridge persuaded the
Rockefeller Foundation to donate £400,000 to the university and the original site was reacquired in 1927. Beveridge saw the university as one "for the nation and the world, drawing from overseas as many students as Oxford and Cambridge and all the other English universities together." and specified that "the central symbol of the University on the Bloomsbury site can not fittingly look like an imitation of any other university, it must not be a replica from the Middle Ages. It should be something that could not have been built by any earlier generation than this, and can only be at home in London ... (the building) means a chance to enrich London – to give London at its heart not just more streets and shops ... but a great architectural feature ... an academic island in swirling tides of traffic, a world of learning in a world of affairs." Construction began in 1932 and was undertaken by
Holland, Hannen & Cubitts. King
George V laid the ceremonial foundation stone on 26 June 1933 and the first staff moved in during 1936, the university's centenary year. On 27 November 1936, a group of university officials, led by the Principal, Sir Edwin Deller, went out to inspect the work in progress. Suddenly, without warning, a
skip being pushed by a workman overhead accidentally fell down and hit them. All were rushed to
University College Hospital, where three days later, Deller died of his injuries. Due to a lack of funds, the full design was gradually cut back, and only the Senate House and Library were completed in 1937, The completion of the buildings for the Institute of Education and the School of Oriental Studies followed, but the onset of the
Second World War prevented any further progress on the full scheme.
Critical opinion The architectural character and scale of the building has received both positive and negative criticism since its construction.
Steen Eiler Rasmussen, a friend of Holden, commented that, with the expansive design, "the London University is swallowing more and more of the old houses, and this quarter – which the Duke of Bedford laid out for good domestic houses – has taken on quite a different character."
Evelyn Waugh, in
Put Out More Flags (1942), describes it as "the vast bulk of London University insulting the autumnal sky." Positive comments came from
functionalist architect
Erich Mendelsohn in 1938, who wrote to Holden that he was "very much taken and am convinced that there is no finer building in London." Architectural historian Arnold Whittick described the building as a "static massive pyramid ... obviously designed to last for a thousand years", but thought "the interior is more pleasing than the exterior. There is essentially the atmosphere of dignity, serenity and repose that one associates with the architecture of ancient Greece."
Nikolaus Pevsner was less enthusiastic. He described its style as "strangely semi-traditional, undecided modernism" and summarised the result: "The design certainly does not possess the vigour and directness of Charles Holden's smaller Underground stations." Others have described it as
Stalinist or as
totalitarian due to its great scale.
Present day Senate House remains a prominent landmark throughout Bloomsbury and is visible from some distance away. The building was
listed as Grade II* in 1969. Following a multimillion-pound refurbishment in 2006, Senate House has also become a conference and event venue playing host to some of the city's most prestigious events including
London Fashion Week. Following the relaxation of the rules in the UK on university status under the
Major government and consequential stirrings towards full independence of the larger London University colleges, the future of Senate House and its library has from time to time been called into question. However, Senate House remains, and continues to be home both to the vice-chancellor of the University of London and to the deep resources of the university library; indeed, it re-opened in 2006 after undergoing a refurbishment to bring it up to modern standards and to reinstate some of Holden's original interiors. Some schools in constituent colleges, such as the
Birkbeck School of Computer Science and Information Systems (until 2010), and the
School of Advanced Study (the UK's national centre for the facilitation and promotion of research in the humanities and social sciences) are or were based in Senate House.
SOAS moved into the north block of Senate House from 2016. The main entrance is from
Malet Street to the west and the rear entrance from
Russell Square to the east. In recent years, Senate House has been associated with high-profile industrial relations disputes. In December 2018, a boycott of the
University of London, including Senate House, organised by the
Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain and supported by a number of high-profile politicians, journalists and academics, including
John McDonnell,
Owen Jones,
Ken Loach and
David Graeber came into effect. This campaign of 'direct action' aims to put pressure on the University of London to bring outsourced workers back into the employment of the university by targeting what is a major source of both prestige and revenue for the university. Numerous events during the 2018–19 academic year were cancelled or relocated, and over 350 individual academics, as well as a number of UCU branches all signatories to the campaign. In May 2019 receptionists, porters as well post room and audio-visual (AV) equipment workers were made University of London staff, followed by security guards in May 2020. ==Senate House Library==