Senate House Library

Senate House
The Senate House of the University of London
General information
Architectural style	Art Deco, Neo-Classical
Town or city	London, WC1 United Kingdom
Construction started	1932
Completed	1937
Client	University of London
Design and construction
Architect	Charles Holden

Coordinates: 51°31′16″N 0°07′43″W / 51.5210°N 0.1287°W / 51.5210; -0.1287

Senate House is the administrative centre of the University of London, situated in the heart of Bloomsbury, London, between the SOAS, University of London to the east, and the British Museum to the south. The building is now part of the campus of SOAS - a world-renowned college of the wider University of London.

The Art Deco building was constructed between 1932 and 1937 as the first phase of a large uncompleted scheme designed for the University by Charles Holden. It consists of 19 floors and is 210 feet (64 m) high.

Today the main building contains the University of London's Central Academic Bodies and activities, including the offices of the Vice-Chancellor of the University, the entire collection of the Senate House Library, and seven of the nine research institutes of the School of Advanced Study. During the Second World War, the building's use by the Ministry of Information inspired two noted English writers. Graham Greene's novel The Ministry of Fear (1943) and its film adaptation Ministry of Fear by Fritz Lang (1944) set in Bloomsbury.George Orwell's wife Eileen worked in Senate House for the Censorship Department of the Ministry of Information, and her experiences inspired the description of the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.