Deconstructed: Grosvenor Square - Protest and the State

Open City · May 28, 2026 · 30m

In this episode Matthew Lloyd Roberts was joined by the historian Katrina Navickas to discuss the history of Grosvenor Square in Mayfair as a site of protest and policing. From the early twentieth century the square was home to the US Embassy, and it was the site of several protests against American foreign policy, most notably the Vietnam War in 1968. The policing of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign led to the first CCTV system in the UK being erected in the square. The Embassy building itself, designed by Eero Saarinen, became a potent symbol of American power in London, but more recently…