Bloomsbury Social Centre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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  Bloomsbury Social Centre Location within Greater London | |
| Address | 53 Gordon Square, London |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 51°31′28″N 0°07′47″W / 051.524333°N 000.129667°W |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 23 November 2011 |
| Closed | 22 December 2011 |
| Architect | Charles Holden |
| Tenants | |
| School of Oriental and African Studies | |
| Website | |
| bloomsburysocialcentre | |
Bloomsbury Social Centre was an impromptu squat and social centre in Bloomsbury, London, which was squatted as a self-managed social centre by students in affiliation with Occupy London, and the global Occupy movement. It was formed on 23 November 2011, and evicted on 22 December, lasting a total of 30 days.[1] It occupied 53 Gordon Square,[2] a historic six-storey Georgian Grade II-listed building, the former home of the Percival David Collection, renovated by famous British architect, Charles Holden, the principal architect of nearby Senate House.[3] 53 Gordon Square is now part of the Doctoral School.[4]
The self-managed social centre was squatted by University of London students as an act protesting political issues of the day, including cuts to the national budget by the incumbent Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government, the tripling of university tuition fee contribution caps in England and Wales, the wars in the Middle East,[vague] and, more generally, free market capitalism, the political right-wing, and neo-liberalism.[citation needed]
Activities
The occupiers aimed to make Bloomsbury Social Centre an open-access space for the local community. Spare rooms could be booked online for unspecified use.[citation needed]
The space was used for open and closed events by book clubs, university societies, artists, musicians, actors, and students. It served as a space for meetings, discussions, drama and music rehearsals, art projects, and group work sessions.[citation needed] They also routinely organized nightly films ("Usually communist, always beautiful" - the last week included Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, Germany in Autumn and an unspecified film of Beckett's Endgame[5]), open forum discussions, English and foreign language classes, international cuisine cooking classes, bicycle workshops and other less-frequent events, all of which were free.
They set up a small museum on the first floor, called the Museum of Neo-Liberalism, chronicling its rise and fall. An open-access library was set up on the fourth floor, with a focus on radical left-wing literature. The public were encouraged to read and work there.[6]
