What a year it has been! I wanted to use the last Letter From the Director of 2024 as an opportunity to look back at everything the Society has achieved since January and it’s taken me a while to process it all.

Firstly, I’d like to thank all the guides who helped us deliver 17 different walks that explore London’s past, present and future – ranging from social history to mega infrastructure. We are so grateful to the people who put in the hours to lead these fascinating trips around the city we love. 

We have also organised a series of tours that provide special access to buildings and spaces. These include: 

• The compact timber WorkStack by dRMM
• The Tannery and Drawing Room Gallery by Coffey Architects
• Greenwich Millennium Village by Jestico + Whiles
• Industria by Haworth Tompkins
• Sustainable Ventures at County Hall by Material Works
• A construction tour of the new Museum of London and a visit to the UAL campus in Stratford, both by Stanton Williams
• The Neasden Temple
• Cockpit Arts by Cooke Fawcett
• A Routemaster bus tour of Barking and Dagenham projects by Be First Regeneration (with all the participating architects). 

Bear with me as there’s more to come with our full talks programme, such as:

• London of the Future at Architect@Work
• The annual Banister Fletcher Lecture by Indy Johar
• The Future of London’s Industry at Haworth Tompkins
• An event at the Earls Court Development
• An exploration of the Life Sciences sector with Allies and Morrison
• Revealing the public space created by the Thames Tideway Tunnel courtesy of Hawkins\Brown
• Campaigning for more public toilets at Donald Insall Associates
• Our big talk with the Housing Ombudsman at BDP (read more about that here).

We tied some special talks to coincide with new books, including: 

• Rowan Moore’s Property: The Myth that Built the World
• Londoners Making London by Jan Kattein. 

There are many other book reviews on the blog that didn’t get events of their own and please feel free to catch-up with them via the website. We also hosted some major events like: 

• The Love Letters to London ceremony in the Guildhall London Centre
• The Society Summer Party above the old Smithfield Market. 

On top of all this, we produced two more episodes of our hit podcast, London Explained, covering Marble Arch and the Central District Alliance (that takes in Clerkenwell, Holborn and Tottenham Court Road). A special thanks to Dave Hill and Andrew McGibbon for all the hard work that goes into the research and editing for these deep dives into particular parts of the capital. Expect more of this in 2025. 

Thanks for journeying through this list with me. I think it’s quite incredible that we manage to do all this with such a small, but dedicated, team. We rely on all of our members and supporters to help fund the charity and we welcome the general public who seem to enjoy coming along to these events. I can’t wait to reveal what we have planned for the next 12 months, including our new residency at the London Centre with NLA and the City of London!