The House

Radical Histories

25 Princelet Street was built in 1705 as a house for a Huguenot Silk Merchant by local brewer Ben Truman. Over the centuries, as the area became a home for new migrants to the UK from Ireland, Eastern Europe and Bangladesh, the building was divided into rooms, and used for textile industry production, as a hostel for homeless workers, as well as individual family bedsits. By the 1970s, the street had been designated for demolition as part of a programme of urban redevelopment.

Annetta was introduced to the building by then squatter and now Architectural Historian Dan Cruickshanks. He had been involved in protecting 18thC buildings in the local area from being knocked down by occupying them, forming the Spitalfields Trust as a legal and advocacy body to find new owners for the buildings who could take on the work of restoring them.

Building Site

Annetta Pedretti originally intended to use 25 Princelet Street for a self-organised cybernetics conference. Although this never took place, throughout the years the building was a learning project. Annetta dis-assembled the building: removing the layers which had been added over the years, exposing the structure of the building and the charred timber in the hallway. She rebuilt the windows, repointed the brickwork, repaired the roof, as well as making timber panels to line the walls. She made a new staircase in the basement, with built-in drawers which get progressively deeper. She constructed an experimental structure in the back garden. Annetta sometimes described 25 Princelet Street as “The Re-Making of a Piece of English Heritage”, and the project was a deliberate study of layers of time, as well as construction techniques. She left the building unfinished when she died, with a large stock of salvaged woods, partially built staircase spindles, and decorative framework around the house.

Unfinishing

The proposal is to repair the building as a learning process, reusing as much of the material Annetta left behind as possible, prototyping sustainable and bio-based construction approaches, as well as developing new innovative architectural products based on local waste material. We are aiming for building works to start in 2028.

Accessible Resource

House of Annetta will become a fully accessible space, with a lift making wheelchair access installed in the back garden. It will be retrofitted so that it is warmer in winter and usable year-round. We also want to fit out the different spaces as a community resource: with a range of spaces for meetings, arts production, and an archive dedicated to women in Cybernetics. The repair process will be delivered as a series of training courses, including a Built Environment Ecologies Diploma, a Future Skills NVQ and community DIY upskilling supporting the maintenance of local housing.


Neighbourhood Retrofit

Once the building is repaired, these training courses will continue as learning programs with the dream of seeding neighbourhood retrofit projects. We will host a programme of courses and learning events, combining practical building maintenance and supporting neighbourhood retrofit. We will reprint Annetta’s books as ‘living books’, alongside new creative responses.

The building structure and wall build-up is visible.


The house is full of marks of time.

House of annetta is closed for winter hibernation. Back open : spring 2026  ꩜  support our work, become a housewiFe ♡