In this short film, lecturers and graduates from Birkbeck's School of Arts take you on a tour through the rich layers of social, literary, artistic and architectural history embodied in the School's building on Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, London. Beginning with the wider urban context of Bloomsbury and the aristocratic Bedford Estate, we then zero in on the building and its original use as a terrace of individual houses for the 'respectable' middle classes. You'll see the spaces occupied by the Stephen siblings (including Virginia and Vanessa, better known by their married names: Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell) when they rented one of the houses, held intellectual salons and turned Bloomsbury into a watchword for for bohemianism and modernist innovation. When Birkbeck took over the terrace in the 1970s, they knocked the separate houses together, creating the labyrinth students get lost in today. The film also takes you into the radical early 21st century intervention on the back of the building, the Centre for Film and Media by Surface Architects, with a fascinating explanation by the architect. Enlivened by new footage, including of rooms not accessible to the public, as well as by original animations, the film tells the unexpectedly varied story of a typical London building. As well as being an interesting documentary in itself, the film gives prospective and current students insights into the ways in which the building's spaces are rich with associations relevant to the School's BA, MA and MPhil/PhD courses in History of Art, English and Humanities, Film and Media, and Cultures and Languages. For members of the public, it offers a taste of what's on offer every year in mid-September, when the School opens its doors for Open House London, as well as of the events organised by the Architecture Space and Society Centre. For more information about the School of Arts and the courses they offer - http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts

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