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Open City Audio

Weekly programmes by Open City. Making architecture and cities more open, accessible and equitable. This week: Deconstructed. Grosvenor Square - Protest and the State. In this episode Matthew Lloyd Roberts is joined by the historian Katrina Navickas to discuss the history of Grosvenor Square in Mayfair as a site of protest and policing. From the early twentieth century the square was home to the US Embassy, and it was the site of several protests against American foreign policy, most notably the Vietnam War in 1968. The policing of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign led to the first CCTV system in the UK being erected in the square. The Embassy building itself, designed by Eero Saarinen, became a potent symbol of American power in London, but more recently the Embassy has moved to a more secure location in Nine Elms. [Repeats Tuesday 2.30am.]

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