Online Session- Connecting the Nation: A History of the Telephone Exchange Building

This article was first published by Twentieth Century Society.

Monday 25 November 2024 at 6.30pm

A lecture by Lisa Kinch, PhD student at Lancaster University, on the architectural history of the UK’s telephone exchange buildings and how they embody the changing relationships between ‘official’ architecture, technology and the state.

Since the end of the Second World War, the telephone exchange building has evolved from a civic edifice to a more discrete and efficient type of building. The history of these ubiquitous buildings has not yet been recorded, but ongoing research is uncovering some of their historic and architectural values.