Senate House, London

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 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 210ft 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.