The southern end of the square is dominated by the University of London's Senate House.
Birkbeck College and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) are also located here.
In November 1950, Pablo Picasso, a fellow communist, en route to a Soviet-sponsored[3] World Peace Congress in Sheffield created a mural in Bernal's flat.
It was displayed at the 2012 Tate Britain exhibition on Picasso and Modern British Art.
[7] The poet Christina Rossetti lived at 30 Torrington Square until her death here on 29 December 1894 from breast cancer.