An aging Brutalist school building in London will soon house the forthcoming Museum of Brutalist Architecture (MoBA), per an announcement made by the National Lottery Heritage Fund earlier this month. The initiative, an offshoot of a design-focused educational charity called Urban Learners, is seeking its first permanent space after operating online exclusively. The news may be viewed as a move in a positive direction for fans of the post-war style who have pined for an appropriate physical venue to repair the public image of an architectural style which has gotten a bad rap for so long.
Reed Watts Architects, a ten-year-old studio practice also based in London is leading the adaptive reuse of the Grade II–listed Acland Burghley School in Camden, where the museum will be located. As outlined in the funding announcement, the school, itself a well-regarded example of Brutalism, was completed in 1968 by Howell Killick Partridge & Amis. Details regarding the final cost of the renovation and the planned curatorial programming of the museum are scant.
The project is backed by a National Lottery Grant for Heritage totaling more than £1 million ($1,335,235). Other entities, including the Camden borough council, have made financial commitments. Once it opens, the building will support education activities tailored to local schoolchildren and the public with exhibitions, events, workshops, screenings, and performances geared toward neighboring communities and house the Museum of Brutalist Architecture.
The renovation of Acland Burghley School entails a comprehensive slate of accessibility upgrades throughout the school building and its hexagonal assembly hall. These include resolving several incongruities left behind by previous alteration schemes while restoring the assembly space to accommodate performances with a seated capacity of up to 300 persons, installing a sub-grade passive ventilation system, and opening the building’s south-facing elevation to create space for outdoor productions to be held in front of its restored amphitheater.
“Along with high environmental standards and sustainability targets, our approach is celebrate the heritage of the building through sensitive renewal alongside contemporary adaption,” the firm said in a project description.
Reed Watts said it has been working with the school community since 2020 to “undo this harm and to reinvigorate the building.”
Its completion should provide space for commentary on the current state of similar Brutalist K–12 facilities and public buildings in the United Kingdom that have fallen into crisis due to toxicity of RAAC concrete building materials and the associated repair costs. The museum’s announcement also comes as preservation fights over historic examples of Brutalism—such as the Arlington House in Margate and Southbank Centre in London—heat up across the country and in the U.S. Likewise, the project therefore fits nicely within the U.K,’s nascent embrace of the adaptive reuse alternative.
According to Reed Watts, construction will begin in summer 2026 and the Museum of Brutalist Architecture will open sometime in the year 2027.
Josh Niland is a writer and editor with work published in Artnet, Architectural Digest, Artforum, Hyperallergic, WHITEHOT magazine, and the Boston Phoenix. He holds a degree in philosophy from Boston University and worked previously as the featured staff writer at Archinect.
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