For many of us, queer nightclubs have inspired freedom and individual expression. We come together to celebrate, mourn and forget in these havens of acceptance and equality.  The decline of these night-time venues over the past decade has prompted much debate. While some iconic venues, such as the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, are currently surviving, many clubs have seen their limelights turning off over the past 20 years, including  Bromptons, Dukes, The Joiner’s Arms and Turnmills (to name just a few).

Joy Evelyn Wilson will present her work ‘ The Immersive Ammanuensis’

Yasmina EL Chami writes about the Crisis of Heritage buildings in Beirut, after an enormous explosion at the port of Beirut shook a city of two million inhabitants on 4 August 2020.

Kit Heyam reflects on the Rainbow Plaques project, which commemorates the queer history of places by making the diversity and longevity of the queer experience in York clearly visible, and the impact of the plaques in the city and beyond.

The development of the pre-war ‘Improved Public House’ (promoted by the Temperance Movement), as a model of respectability and moderation, was not simply a matter of reducing hours and consumption but of architecture as an engine of social reform.

Beer and pubs are an integral part of the Czech national myth – but, as Peter Smisek reveals, their role has changed through the centuries. Seen at different times as sites of cultural revival or vulgar hedonism – as well as places of forgetting – they continue to expose the shifting fault lines in Czech society.

The Iron Duke in Great Yarmouth, once flagship of Norfolk brewers Lacons, is perhaps the most complete art deco pub in the country in terms of both conception and preservation, but its survival is currently under threat, writes Caroline Jones of The Friends of the Iron Duke

Emily Cole of Historic England looks at the rapid – and often radical – changes to both the architectural form and social role of the public house in England across the 20th century.