In 1935, Dutch modernism landed in Crouch End. Designed by the 27-year-old New Zealander Reginald Uren, Hornsey Town Hall looked more like a utopian factory than a council HQ.

There were double-height Crittall windows, and annexes for gas and electricity showrooms. There was an assembly hall with a sprung dance floor. There was a synchronometer in the basement controlling the building’s 78 clocks, to make sure that meetings started on the dot. And there was even a factory gate: a huge bronze screen somewhat incongruously depicting woodland animals and emblazoned with the epithet “Administration”.

Much of that municipal world has disappeared, not least Hornsey council itself, merged into Haringey in 1965. By 2000, the council had moved out of the town hall and,  by the 2010s, it was on Historic England’s heritage-at-risk register. The grade II*-listed building was trapped in a spiral of inaction, falling further and further into disrepair and becoming ever less viable.