Brutal beauty: Owen Hatherley gives a virtual tour of London’s Czech and Slovak embassies

Architecture aficionados, this one’s for you: writer Owen Hatherley is hosting a digital tour of London’s Czech and Slovak brutalist embassy buildings.

The video tour on 17 June will take guests from the main structure’s rooftop terrace into the basement cinema. Set in west London between Kensington and Notting Hill, the boxy, brutalist monolith was designed by Czech architects Jan Šrámek, Jan Bočan, and Karel Štepánský to host Czechoslovak diplomats in 1970. Completed in collaboration with Robert Mathew, the British architect better known for designing London’s Royal Festival Hall, it later won the RIBA London Region Award in 1971.

Organised by the Czech Centre in London as part of this year’s London Festival of Architecture, Brutal Beauty will end with a Q&A session with Hatherely, as well as Czech architectural historians Rostislav Švácha and Irena Lehkoživová.

Register to attend this online event for free here, on 17 June, at 6.30pm GMT.