I have a similar sort of fascination with a structure closer to me: Habitat 67 in Montreal. I have at various points considered buying a unit there but practicality prevents me from doing so each time. I don't know how long I'll resist.
Curious, what are the practical concerns? The place looks fantastic to me!
I really miss more bold architectural and city planning experiments. Like, I get it, if it’s a flop, it’s a pretty expensive one. But still, it feels like the design-space there is just really under-explored.
Maybe there’s some AI-driven simulation way to explore the design-space and arrive at viable solutions before committing too much funds.
Not GP but the linked Wikipedia page says though there's a private shuttle it's difficult to get into town on foot, so I'd guess it's concern that it'd be annoyingly secluded/disconnected at times.
Like OJFord mentions, it is a bit far from amenities despite the straight line distance to them not being great because it's built on an island in the river and you have to cross the bridge to get to the downtown area.
But more importantly for me, my usual life is not in Montreal. I love Montreal but moving there would require quite a few sacrifices in personal relationships that I don't feel like making. And government services in Quebec are also worse than in Ontario (where I am now).
I visited outside it twice but they are very strict with protecting the privacy of the residents, so you aren't allowed in. I could only take some photos from street level outside.
Living in the Barbican seems so very typical for a spy that it'd be like a give away.
James Bond obviously doesn't live there, but I can imagine any number of John le Carré's later characters (the early novels are set before it was built) would make sense.
I didn't enjoy the city of arts and sciences tbh, it felt disconnected, artificial, maybe almost totalitarian in its will to show off. I also thought that, if you look past the immediate effect, it just didn't feel that good looking. A bit similar to how I often feel about Zaha Hadids work.
In comparison, in the barbican I felt like I could sit there for hours and enjoy the architecture. It has so many interesting details and aesthetically pleasing corners.
It's one of my favorite places to spend time when in London. It's comfortable, clean, quiet, aesthetically striking, easy to loaf around at, and there's high brow art in numerous forms to enjoy – it's kinda like BBC Radio 3 if it were a neighborhood. It's also five minutes from the Elizabeth Line and the parking is good which is unusual for the City. It's strikingly non-commercial - there are no chains or even convenience stores there, though there is a fantastic music shop. It's one of those rare places you can feel more intelligent and cultured by merely being there.
I'd love to retire there when the kids are gone, although there are a lot of oddities about Barbican living to contend with that are probably more fun to read about than deal with for real.
It also depends where you are in the Barbican. It spans between the Barbican station and Moorgate. If you are at the latter you can enter Elizabeth line from there too.
I lived there for three years, rented a flat. Living in the Barbican was fantastic, livign in my flat was not fantastic. I used to joke it was a time machine to 1965. There was not only no dishwasher, there was literally no space for a dishwasher. Day one that seems funny, a few days later less so. I was spending a fortune in rent to spend 30 minutes every day handwashing my dishes. I did know people who had bought and renovated, they had amazing places. Oddly on my hall of 10 there were 10 flats of which 4 were empty. I don't mean someone just came occasionally I mean 100% empty with no furniture, with rich people just using it as an investment. Overall though was a greart experience, it's a fantasic place.
> There was not only no dishwasher, there was literally no space for a dishwasher.
This is quite common for older places in the UK. Some places might have been updated to allow for a dishwasher, but there are probably rules against that in the Barbican.
To my knowledge there are no rules against it, it is just a major and expensive plumbing project requiring redoing the whole kitchen. And so as a landlord why bother, you will always find someone willing to rent, no matter how unlivable the place. This dynamic was hardly unique to the Barbican, it was the reality of being a tenant in London, and ultimately one of the reasons I left. London's housing stock is just terrible compared to every other city I've lived in.
I’ve lived in 4 different flats in the Barbican and they all had a dishwasher. I think only the studios you’d have a problem finding space for one. Of course in the others it is a preference whether you want to lose space for other things or not. It is not a lot of extra plumbing. It is usually when they want to preserve the original kitchen (or a cheap landlord as you suggest - although all the ones I had there were great)
In my last apartment, I installed a tabletop dishwasher on the balcony and had it share the water inlet with the washing machine using a y splitter.
It would probably be an eyesore and a huge space killer to use indoor on the kitchentop but thought I'd share a non-invasive solution I used.
The size of the dishwasher was decent, and with some tiny concessions around placement it was perfectly fine for daily washing although I generally prefer to wash pots and pans by hand regardless of dishwasher space fwiw
> This is just London, out of the 8 years I've spent here, 3 of them were spent with a dishwasher. Tbh I've got a dishwasher now and barely use it.
Do you wash by hand then? I'm curious why someone would opt to not use a dishwasher if they have one. In my ranking it's the third most essential appliance, after a washing machine and a fridge. I probably would rather give up warm water than my dishwasher.
On a per-dish basis, yes. But dishwashers are a classic Jevons paradox: once you factor in that the convenience of having one increases your dish usage versus the counterfactual of having to hand wash everything you use, the comparison is less straightforward.
My family does not, so far as I can tell, use a different number of dishes because of the presence of a dishwasher. The kids almost never wash(ed) up, so it makes/made no difference to them for example. And I loathe washing up, but I always use as few dishes etc as I reasonably can simply from a sustainability point of view. And I ensure that the dishwasher is as full as reasonably possible before being run, and run at the best time from a carbon/cost point of view.
If you're a single person living in a flat in a city, then you can get in the habit of rinsing your tableware right after using when stuff still easily comes off, and therefore not use much effort at all on washing, and you just reuse the same tableware over and over. This is common and the reason why dishwashers aren't much needed for some.
In my house it’s just my father and I, and we don’t really generate enough dishes to justify using an automatic dishwasher. It only takes 5-10 minutes to clean up after most meals, and it would take a few days to get it full enough to run a cycle, after which putting the dishes away seems more burdensome.
When we visit family (or have visitors at home), the utility of a dishwasher becomes much more apparent when serving 4-6 people.
I spent the first 46 years of my life living in properties in London with no dishwasher. Honestly never thought they were particularly common. In fact the one in my current house was recently out of action for 6 weeks and I tried to convince my partner we should take the opportunity to get rid of it and fill the space with something more useful!
Lived in London for 20 years, rented 7 or 8 different flats in that time, none of them had a dishwasher and most of them didn't have space for one. Didn't know what I was missing. Moving out of London and finally using a dishwasher was a lifechanging experience.
> There was not only no dishwasher, there was literally no space for a dishwasher.
30 minutes? Either you're cleaning up a sink full of dishes you neglected for a week or cleaning up after cooking a dinner for four or more. If you immediately clean your dishes after use its takes almost no time at all, maybe a minute or two.
Withnail: Have you got soup? Why don't I get any soup?
Marwood: Coffee.
Withnail: Why don't you use a cup like any other human being?
Marwood: Why don't you wash up occasionally like any other human being?
Withnail: (Appalled) How dare you! How dare you! How dare you call me inhumane?!
I haven't lived without a dishwasher since I was a student. I am not keen on repeating the experience.
nice analogy comparing it to BBC Radio 3- if you/someone knows which neighbourhood would be like BBC Radio 4? I find R3 too high brow for me - Radio 4 seems more accessible :)
First place that jumps to mind is Richmond! Radio 4 is certainly more "chatty" while still being posh and Richmond is both posh and full of that street/café life.
If we're going to fill out the roster, let's say Radio 1 is Camden, 1xtra is Brixton, Radio 2 is Bromley, Radio 5 is Dagenham, and 6music is eh.. I dunno, Shoreditch?
Maybe! I am not really an R4 listener and when I am, it's for the twee comedy stuff rather than the news and politics. If LBC is as you describe, though, I dread to imagine where Talk Radio is :-D
Idk I find the area dirty & busy/litter everywhere, etc. But then many parts of London are like that compared to NZ (where we generally take care of the place better).
It's not so bad once you head out into the counties either I suppose.
your largest city is 9 times smaller than London, admittedly it has some dirtiness as all cities do but I'd say it's cleaner than Berlin (having worked there) which is a quarter the size, certainly cleaner than Paris (although Paris is larger of course), and cleaner than New York (also having worked there) which is fairly close in population.
Certainly, the denser population doesn't help. But on average I think British people tend to litter more, destroy public property etc.
I had never heard of the term "anti-social behaviour" until I moved here.
Don't get me wrong, there are many, many brilliant things about the British and the UK as well. I just wish more people cared - like how does the public not react with outright fury when a company yet again dumps sewerage into waterways, as they have done several times before - and that company is given a slap on the wrist (fine) rather than obliterated & replaced with a scorched Earth policy as it's completely unacceptable.
And those same people who are apathetic to such things say stuff like "oh I wouldn't do that...the canals and rivers are gross and filled with bacteria and rubbish" when I tell them I'm going kayaking or canoeing. Like...be proud of your country! Be swift & decisive when companies pollute the water, or members of the public break something or cause public disorder.
I live far out of London, so I sympathise, but due to my family's pursuits, I mostly spend time in London in either Soho or the City, and compared to Soho, the City is a an immaculate paradise.. ;-)
There are plenty of public spaces which are also really nice and calm considering you're pretty much in the thick of it. You can sometimes even hear the Guildhall students practising which is a lovely treat
Always great to see more people who love the Barbican as much as I do. A gloriously inventive space that feels like it comes from an alternate timeline. There’s also an integrated complex including a theatre housing the RSC, a concert hall that hosts the LSO, a library and I think a cinema.
Fun fact: a good chunk of the video to “As It Was” was shot there.
Good camera + good lens + good photographer + good processing.
Photography is a deeper, more subtle art than a lot of people realize. Two people can take a picture in the exact same location and time and get wildly different results.
Whether this was done on-camera or in post, there's color grading happening here. The moody, almost film-like quality present in these pictures is also really popular in high production TV shows right now. Also a good eye for fun compositions, like the shot with the wall/barrier present in the left to offer the feeling of being closed or restricted.
Notice how the shadows are somewhat teal-tinged and the contrast is toned down. There may or may not be some grain or vignetting added in post as well. There are Lightroom color profiles that can get this sort of color feel on application. But the compositions and natural lighting are pure photographer skill to chase.
There’s a pretty great cinema and theatre / concert hall complex in the basement too, which I can recommend visiting. Oh, and a tropical garden (Barbican Conservatory)!
Note that he did not use the expression you are criticizing him for misusing.
The rule is the rule, and exceptions are the exception. Exceptions do not make the rule, by definition, so if your only defense of Brutalism is to say 'look at this one exception out of the tens of thousands that got built, which doesn't suck!', then you have conceded the point about Brutalism sucking.
Centre Point and it's lesser known baby brother One Kemble Street are pretty attractive buildings too though the former has the characteristic brutalist issue of not being great at street level. Depending on where you approach it from, the Barbican can have that issue too...
My appreciation of Brutalist architecture seems to be in direct proportion to the number of plants it incorporates.
A Brutalist building with zero plants looks like a totalitarian prison hellscape designed to destroy your soul before it destroys your body.
A Brutalist building surrounded by trees with every nook containing greenery and vines dangling down looks like some kind of idyllic Star Wars planet populated by fuzzy hobbit-like creatures.
I'm not sure why I find this effect so strong. Perhaps because flat gray concrete is aesthetically ambiguous. When paired with greenery, it looks like stone. In it's absence, it looks like industrial mechanism.
Agreed. I think greenery and water enhances most architectural styles, but Brutalism is the only one that absolutely _requires_ it. I wonder how differently the perception of the style would be if the Brutalist estates in the UK that became a byword for grimness and ugliness had been embowered and properly maintained by their housing groups and local councils.
For many modern buildings, the concept art used to sell it to the planners has a lot more plants in than actually get planted, or survive the first year.
> embowered
I think this is a typo for "empowered", but it's also a great word for covering something with trees.
There's only so far you can economically maintain a building of bare concrete in a damp maritime climate like the UK I think, the porous material is just going to be a nightmare when it doesn't dry out for much of the year.
I don't like Brutalism in general, but it looks a lot less ugly somewhere sunny like Spain or the South of France than the UK in my opinion.
With greenery on it, the concrete takes on the aspect of a cliff or a rock face, so it feels more they homes were carved out of stone, than poured out of a truck.
Unfortunately without careful continuous maintenance the plants destroy the concrete. Whenever I see plants on one of these buildings that's usually a sign it's been abandoned. It has a post-apocalyptic HZD feel. Like the RBS Dundas Street "ziggurat". https://x.com/sallymiranda/status/1400883551751610381
> Perhaps because flat gray concrete is aesthetically ambiguous. When paired with greenery, it looks like stone. In it's absence, it looks like industrial mechanism.
Yes, this is the fundamental error of modernism/brutalism - the belief that flatness and the lack of ornamentation is beautiful. It can be .. but only under optimal conditions, like the concept art. "Material design" for buildings. As soon as it gets a bit weathered and dirty it becomes merely drab. Plants provide some organic variation over the surface, breaking up the now-dirty "clean" lines.
"There’s an underground parking garage for the residents, but half of it is empty and filled with 20-30-year-old cars whose owners are no longer known."
Of all the great information, that's the bit that sticks in my mind for some reason. I'd like to pics of that...
I was recently reading another book of Ballard while on the flight to London and, shortly after arriving, visited the Barbican. What a magical experience it was!
Oh that the was fascinating, too. From visiting more than a decade ago, I understand that most of the permanent population of Whittier lives there (except for some hotel employees) and that they have an underground passage connecting it with the school building opposite (so students in winter can get there without putting on a coat).
The events, cultural activities and especially some of the curated exhibitions at the Barbican have been outstanding. Highly recommend to anyone visiting London.
What a coincidence, I just visited last week. The article's comment about it being hard to navigate is completely accurate but I found it to be fun. You may be getting lost, but there's always an interesting view towards another part of the building enticing you to go there... It's almost like the design of Breath of the Wild or something.
I'm surprised the article doesn't mention the concert hall. It's one of London's most famous, with almost 2000 seats, and it's the London Symphony Orchestra's main home.
Until last lear, The Lead Developer conference (https://leaddev.com/) was held there, but it's moved to a larger venue for this year (I don't think the size of the main hall was the problem, it was the areas for break out etc.) They had a great talk about the history of the place: https://leaddev.com/leadership/you-are-here-the-story-of-the...
The Barbican Theatre is one of the London homes of the Royal Shakespeare Company, although they are looking to
OP here. I hadn't a chance to visit it. Because of that, I also don't have any photos from there. But good point. I actually just received one of the books I recommend at the end of the blog post, which actually goes into the Barbican Event centre in more detail.
The concert hall and theater is indeed the main reason most people who aren’t residents end up in the Barbican. When I lived in London it was almost a classical music rite of passage to get completely lost on the wrong concrete overhead walkway while rushing to get to an LSO concert there.
Unrelated, but recently the complex has been appearing in the general consciousness again as the excellent Apple TV series/spy novels Slow Horses (about a bunch of outcast MI5 agents) is set near there.
After watching the first season I (a left-coast Yank) started reading Mick Herron's novels and had no idea what the Barbican was. Kept forgetting to look it up, as I kept getting caught up in the action...
(Indeed, Belle and Sebastian's "If You're Feeling Sinister - Live at the Barbican" is my favorite B&S album, and is quite a lot better than the original studio recording. So the Barbican has an odd warm place in my heart despite knowing nothing more about it until today.)
(That same Live at the Barbican album is weirdly hard to find because it was a damned Apple Music exclusive. Travesty...)
Worth pointing out that, as a concert hall, it's extremely mediocre acoustically ( same as the Royal Fesitval Hall) - albeit pretty and I love it dearly. There was a plan to build a new, proper concert hall but it got scotched. Probably deservedly but it would've been wonderful to have a concert hall worthy of our musicians and enesembles.
It's a pretty great theatre, and I also love it dearly as is. I don't mind the acoustics generally, but aware that some people moan about it.
I'm not sure there is a really, really great concert hall from an acoustics perspective in London. Back in Manchester I loved the Bridgewater because it was designed to be acoustically good no matter how many people were in the audience. I can't think of anything that modern and carefully thought through, so I tend to look for smaller venues with more "classical" approaches to acoustics (Wigmore, St Martins, and so on). Where do you like?
The barbican is odd, mainly because its the only brutalist "council housing estate" that actually mostly worked as intended[1]
If you compare the layout/style to say the haygate estate (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13092349 where attack the block was filmed) or the lesser known aylesbury estate, its more enclosed, but no less brutalist.
What is different is that unlike the southwark estates, it always had the original tenancy requirements upheld (either by tenant action, location or happenstance.) [2]
This meant that it didn't have the massive abandonment in the 90s, left to rot throughout the 00s. The quality of the haygate estate was actually pretty high, secure entry, gardens for the low rise, district heating, trees and playgrounds.
What was fucked up was that the heygate was a dumping ground for undesirables. this mean a spiral of drugs, crime and antisocial behaviour. The barbican escaped most of this because people were too fucking posh.
The social life of the barbican was upheld because of the huge amounts of money poured into the cultural centres that are hidden (and I mean hidden, the place is a fucking impossible maze) Most of the tenant social clubs were disbanded on the other estates, and the halls sold off or leased out to businesses.
In many way, the barbican isn't a great estate in terms of building quality. Its the same as any >60s council property. They all had to be big enough, have a separate kitchen and decent storage.
[1] well its not a mixed class housing estate, its all full of posh design types, and a handful of tenants left over from the 80s
[2] to get a council house, you had to be of good standing, and have a job. It wasn't a place to dumo drugadicts or problem families.
TLDR: the barbican is decent housing because it was reasonably well maintained, and wasn't filled with families in distress, or habitual criminals. We need to build more council estates to the same standard, with the same rules as the 60s.
Which in a way actually does align with the OP's view on why it never became known as a dangerous sketchy place.
Much more thought gone into the aesthetics of the Barbican than the Heygate Estate though, which is why the Heygate Estate was the one that ended up as every film scout's first choice of "scary, deprived place" even though it reportedly actually wasn't bad by the standards of south London postwar estates. And that's before taking into account the Barbican's arts facilities and all the money spent maintaining its communcal areas
Yeah, there's an _artistry_ to the barbican that isn't captured by just listing off the features of the complex and apartments. Whoever designed it had excellent _taste_.
But a _lot_ of council estates were well designed, but suffered from failed assumptions. The underground parking in the barbican for example was the same design that cause so many issues for estates elsewhere. They were hidden and that meant crime, unless there was tight access control.
https://modernistpilgrimage.com/2015/10/18/trellick-tower-lo... The trellick tower is fucking ugly on the outside, just like the barbican, but even the trellick has some smashing design features. Like most estates at the time, the three bed flats had an upstairs. Not only that, they were bright! Had a balcony.
The difference between the trellick and the barbican is the barbican had middle class people growing plants on the balcony. Until the hipsters moved in, the trellick just had shit.
I think the biggest thing to take away is that for a long while council housing _had_ to be better than private. It was partly slum clearance, partly vote winning, partly "you fought for this in the war" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Morris_Committee has the general plan.
Separate kitchens, storage, decent square footage, working heating as a _minimum_ something which even 500k flats struggle to do now.
Thats my point, because it wasn't run within the confines of the 1970+ social housing straight jacket (funding not dependent on tenants, no ability to control who was placed in there, centralised funding formula that meant you might gets loads of money one year, and none over the next ten.)
So strange to talk about the Barbican Centre as a curiousity and to not mention the greenhouse! I used to work around the area and would take 'short cuts' from the Barbican tube station through the Barbican Centre to the City. I got lost many, many times, would end up in dead ends, or the other side of lakes to where I wanted to be. Or stuck behind a metal gate I could not open. The place often taunts you with a view of right where you want to be but from behind a thin metal fence or gate that requires a key or fob.
Anyhow, one day I went a different way and there was this massive, tropical greenhouse. Kinda hard to believe if you've ever seen the place.
Op. The greenhouse was closed, hence I hadn't a chance to photograph the place. There are too many details about that place, and I only shared the pieces that I've had chance to thoroughly visit.
As far as I'm aware, the Barbican Conservatory (Greenhouse) will close for refurbishment at a point next year though. When you go currently, they'll have details of the plans for public consultation. So see it while you can (or then again in 2030 or so).
I love the greenhouse, it’s one of my favourite places in London. Walking around it, exploring the different levels and observing the plants covering the concrete and ductwork makes me feel like I’m in some kind of retro-futuristic space arcology.
Such a contrast to the Sky Garden in the City which has all the charm of an airport departure lounge.
It is! - except it's to hide the fly tower from the outside. The fly tower wasn't part of the original design. The first resident theatre company to be - the Royal Shakespeare company insisted upon one so the architects but came up with the genius idea of hiding it with a conservatory. I discovered this when working in the theatre space. I went exploring the fly tower (as you do) and opened a door at the top. I assumed I'd see some dark service corridor, but instead emerged into the warm, humid, nighttime air of a huge conservatory - it was easily the most magical architectural experience I've ever had.
I wasn't sure what you were discussing. Like, what is a fly tower? So I went down a barbican rabbit hole and found this part of a video, where one of the theatre fly techs describes the same thing as you!
The 'flys' are the enormous curtains and backdrops used in theatre productions. They are raised and lowered to set new scenes in a production. They need a large space to be raised into, above the stage--which is known as a fly tower.
One thing that I think is underappreciated as a distinguishing factor of brutalism is how three-dimensional it is.
Whether its the Barbican, or "Grad Center" at Brown University, there are all sorts of elevated walkways that you can see from other levels, defying "every floor is like every other floor" expectations.
I think I have vague memories of when being a small child, being filled with wonder at various municipal buildings that did this. Though my memory hazy and I cannot remember the specific buildings.
These became less popular over time due to cost and safety reasons.
Interbuilding passageways complicate future renovation and redevelopment, and spreading eyes on the street thinly makes all walking areas harder to secure.
> Interbuilding passageways complicate future renovation and redevelopment
They are also incredibly inconvenient. London had many walkways because they wanted to give cars priority, and they largely became unused and became a source for litter.
They can be done well but it has to be thoughtful.
Passageways in Hong Kong are popular, but that’s because the pedestrian density is so high they manage to fill both the skywalk and street level. The passageways provide shelter from tropical sun and rain, sometimes even air conditioning. And it’s a very hilly city anyways, so often you are picking between walking uphill on a plain sidewalk vs. doing it on a skywalk with escalators and elevators.
I used to work on a top floor of the building next to it so had a first class view of the estate. Been there a few times and a friend used to live there too.
He would rave about the place but I’m not a fan of it personally.
Aesthetically it’s out of place and (in my personal opinion) a bit of an eye sore.
The maze like design seems fun at first but it’s less amusing if you’re the one who’s actually lost in there and have somewhere to be.
The apartments are small and impossible to get the temperature right (too hot in summer, too cold in winter).
But because its iconic people still pay an obscene amount to live there.
The on-site amenities are pretty good, but its central London, you’re not far from literally anything you could imagine or desire. So I’m not sure that’s as much a selling point now than it was when the estate was built.
It’s one of those places you’d have to really love in spite of its warts because it’s so impractical by modern standards.
> The on-site amenities are pretty good, but its central London, you’re not far from literally anything you could imagine or desire.
This is totally inaccurate. It's the business district. If not for the Barbican, the nearest serious art gallery, repertory cinema, music auditorium, are all around half an hour away.
There are many cultural centers in the West End, Kensington, and boroughs outside the City, but none of them are 10 or 15 minutes from the Barbican center (hence your not being able to name a single one).
There is a theatre at Tottenham Court Road. It is over 30 minutes away from the Barbican centre by foot (but about 10 minutes by Elizabeth line).
The nearest major art gallery to TCR is not in Soho, but 15-20 minutes from Tottenham Court Road. There are two other major galleries closer to the Barbican than anywhere near Soho. Both are at least 25 minutes by foot and at least 25 minutes by tube.
There isn't an auditorium in Soho, unless you can name one? St-Martin-in-the-fields is no closer than the National portrait gallery, 20 min by foot or 15 by bus from TCR. Easily 25-30 minutes from the Barbican centre by any means of transport.
Likewise there are several repertory cinemas in Soho but none of them are 0 minutes from Tottenham Court Road.
Your claim of 15 minutes by foot was completely laughable. My claim of around 30 minutes in each case was accurate.
The problem isn’t naming them, the problem is you shifting goal posts by saying “major”. Which could just as easily exclude the amenities at the Barbican too, given “major” is an entirely subjective term.
Also I never claimed 15 minutes by foot. And given how good public transport is in London, it’s a silly argument for you to make that we can only talk about out walking somewhere.
Plus even if we were just talking about walking, as myself and others have pointed out to you, half an hour isn’t far to walk in central London. Londoners do it all the time.
There really isn’t any need for you to be taking such an aggressive tone here.
Name any art gallery which you think is a major art gallery, ie of comparable or greater size and prestige to the Barbican art gallery and is 15 minutes from the Barbican center, including by public transport?
You can't, because there isn't one.
You made an incorrect statement, and now you're defending it, but without providing any example at all of what you are claiming exists. So it's a little bit cheeky to claim that I am shifting the goal posts.
But if you really care about art then you aren’t going to limit yourself to “major” art galleries (again, speaking from experience here).
This whole argument is absurd. I dont understand why you find it so controversial to claim that a flat in central London would be near pretty much anything you could want. Business district or not, I stand by my statement. If it weren’t true then people wouldn’t pay the premium to live in central London.
Tate Modern (yes, it is definitely a major art gallery) is around half an hour from the Barbican center by foot, and around half an hour from the Barbican center by public transport.
Read my comment again:
> It's the business district. If not for the Barbican, the nearest serious art gallery, repertory cinema, music auditorium, are all around half an hour away.
Your single 'counter-example' is a serious art gallery, which is around half an hour away...
Your strident tone isn't doing your position any favours.
You're a lot closer to everything in the Barbican than you are in Croydon or Enfield or Acton or Stratford.
London is big. The City is close enough to the centre that it is central, compared to most of London.
(Personally I think the Barbican is ugly, and I didn't like moving around in it, with long walkways forcing unnatural navigation. It only works, in so far as it works, due to a degree of elite mindshare capture keeping it owned and occupied by the wealthy. Put the same idea in Stratford and come back to somewhere far less pleasant in 20 years.)
But honestly, you’re the first Londoner I’ve spoken to who considers 30 minutes by foot a long way away. Even by London standards, that’s close. For suburban dwellers, 30 minutes by foot wouldn’t even get them close to their nearest art gallery (and I don’t even mean “major” galleries either).
And your insistence on limiting things by “major” instances is odd. London has a strong culture of smaller independent amenities. Many of which are a lot closer than Soho and Southbank.
This is honestly the first time I’ve ever heard anyone complain about a zone one apartment being a long way from stuff.
No single big name (although the Guildhall gallery is underrated) but there are a lot of trendy small galleries in the Old Street/Shoreditch area. Sadler's Wells Theatre is extremely reputable and just up the road. There's an Everyman in broad street and two full-on arts cinemas by Shoreditch High Street. That whole area has changed a lot over the last 20 years or so.
Half an hour is pretty much nothing in London. But if you factor public transport or cycling into the mix then there are loads of places you can get to in less than half an hour. For example about 10 minutes cycle to the south you have the Southbank Centre, BFI, Tate Modern etc.
One of the very few places in London that I ever felt truly at peace.
I think the heavy maze like structure was incredibly effective at blocking out the sound of the city and the water features / conservatory made it an amazing place to chill out for a relaxing lunch.
Not quite cyberpunk, not quite solarpunk but somewhere in between and utterly unique.
(Not very) interesting that the author of the piece refers to it as "Barbican" while I've never heard it referred to without the definite article - i.e. "The Barbican". Is there any significance to this?
You’re right. I submitted it as The Barbican here, because that felt more natural for me. I just updated the title of my blog post to The Barbican as well
The building complex is always called “the Barbican”, but the surrounding map area and its tube station are named just “Barbican”. Also, the arts theatre place within the Barbican seems to be officially named “Barbican Centre” (but people always say “going to see X at the Barbican”).
That makes sense. I still find hard to imagine saying something like "I live in Barbican" if I didn't live in _The_ Barbican. But going to "Barbican" if traveling by tube would be obvious.
Having watched Slow Horses recently, I immediately recognized the building. My employer‘s HQ is near Barbican too, such an underrated part of the city.
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 303 ms ] threadI have a similar sort of fascination with a structure closer to me: Habitat 67 in Montreal. I have at various points considered buying a unit there but practicality prevents me from doing so each time. I don't know how long I'll resist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_67
https://www.architectural-review.com/today/the-interlace-in-...
I really miss more bold architectural and city planning experiments. Like, I get it, if it’s a flop, it’s a pretty expensive one. But still, it feels like the design-space there is just really under-explored.
Maybe there’s some AI-driven simulation way to explore the design-space and arrive at viable solutions before committing too much funds.
One can dream.
But more importantly for me, my usual life is not in Montreal. I love Montreal but moving there would require quite a few sacrifices in personal relationships that I don't feel like making. And government services in Quebec are also worse than in Ontario (where I am now).
I was reading this post and thinking, huh, this would be a good set for a Coruscant shot in Andor, and sure enough ...
which is good too, it's a mix of Black comedy and spy tension.
James Bond obviously doesn't live there, but I can imagine any number of John le Carré's later characters (the early novels are set before it was built) would make sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Arts_and_Sciences
In particular, the Museo de las Ciencias Príncipe Felipe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Arts_and_Sciences#/med...
In comparison, in the barbican I felt like I could sit there for hours and enjoy the architecture. It has so many interesting details and aesthetically pleasing corners.
I'd love to retire there when the kids are gone, although there are a lot of oddities about Barbican living to contend with that are probably more fun to read about than deal with for real.
Thanks for that, put a smile on my face.
And about 200ft. Such is the maze-like nature of the Barbican.
Did you used to cook for the seven dwarves and their extended families, every day?
This is quite common for older places in the UK. Some places might have been updated to allow for a dishwasher, but there are probably rules against that in the Barbican.
It would probably be an eyesore and a huge space killer to use indoor on the kitchentop but thought I'd share a non-invasive solution I used.
The size of the dishwasher was decent, and with some tiny concessions around placement it was perfectly fine for daily washing although I generally prefer to wash pots and pans by hand regardless of dishwasher space fwiw
This is just London, out of the 8 years I've spent here, 3 of them were spent with a dishwasher. Tbh I've got a dishwasher now and barely use it.
Do you wash by hand then? I'm curious why someone would opt to not use a dishwasher if they have one. In my ranking it's the third most essential appliance, after a washing machine and a fridge. I probably would rather give up warm water than my dishwasher.
When we visit family (or have visitors at home), the utility of a dishwasher becomes much more apparent when serving 4-6 people.
30 minutes? Either you're cleaning up a sink full of dishes you neglected for a week or cleaning up after cooking a dinner for four or more. If you immediately clean your dishes after use its takes almost no time at all, maybe a minute or two.
Then say that, amigo.
If we're going to fill out the roster, let's say Radio 1 is Camden, 1xtra is Brixton, Radio 2 is Bromley, Radio 5 is Dagenham, and 6music is eh.. I dunno, Shoreditch?
Richmond teeters over into Classic FM to my taste - ostensibly cultured, but basically posh-pop.
And LBC is a diffuse torroidal agglomeration of zone 3+ greasy spoons known only to White Van Men and black cab drivers.
It's not so bad once you head out into the counties either I suppose.
That surprises me, I was under the impression that Greater London was a bit bigger than Greater Paris on most metrics.
Unless you mean the City of London (The Square Mile) itself, which is definitely much smaller than Paris proper.
But it is actually closer than I thought, closer in size to paris than new york which surprises me.
I could be wrong though, maybe London is actually bigger than most estimates.
I had never heard of the term "anti-social behaviour" until I moved here.
Don't get me wrong, there are many, many brilliant things about the British and the UK as well. I just wish more people cared - like how does the public not react with outright fury when a company yet again dumps sewerage into waterways, as they have done several times before - and that company is given a slap on the wrist (fine) rather than obliterated & replaced with a scorched Earth policy as it's completely unacceptable.
And those same people who are apathetic to such things say stuff like "oh I wouldn't do that...the canals and rivers are gross and filled with bacteria and rubbish" when I tell them I'm going kayaking or canoeing. Like...be proud of your country! Be swift & decisive when companies pollute the water, or members of the public break something or cause public disorder.
Fun fact: a good chunk of the video to “As It Was” was shot there.
These photos look great, but I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly why.
The Barbican certainly looks better here than from what I remember of seeing it through the naked eye.
Photography is a deeper, more subtle art than a lot of people realize. Two people can take a picture in the exact same location and time and get wildly different results.
Notice how the shadows are somewhat teal-tinged and the contrast is toned down. There may or may not be some grain or vignetting added in post as well. There are Lightroom color profiles that can get this sort of color feel on application. But the compositions and natural lighting are pure photographer skill to chase.
The rule is the rule, and exceptions are the exception. Exceptions do not make the rule, by definition, so if your only defense of Brutalism is to say 'look at this one exception out of the tens of thousands that got built, which doesn't suck!', then you have conceded the point about Brutalism sucking.
A Brutalist building with zero plants looks like a totalitarian prison hellscape designed to destroy your soul before it destroys your body.
A Brutalist building surrounded by trees with every nook containing greenery and vines dangling down looks like some kind of idyllic Star Wars planet populated by fuzzy hobbit-like creatures.
I'm not sure why I find this effect so strong. Perhaps because flat gray concrete is aesthetically ambiguous. When paired with greenery, it looks like stone. In it's absence, it looks like industrial mechanism.
> embowered
I think this is a typo for "empowered", but it's also a great word for covering something with trees.
I don't like Brutalism in general, but it looks a lot less ugly somewhere sunny like Spain or the South of France than the UK in my opinion.
> Perhaps because flat gray concrete is aesthetically ambiguous. When paired with greenery, it looks like stone. In it's absence, it looks like industrial mechanism.
Yes, this is the fundamental error of modernism/brutalism - the belief that flatness and the lack of ornamentation is beautiful. It can be .. but only under optimal conditions, like the concept art. "Material design" for buildings. As soon as it gets a bit weathered and dirty it becomes merely drab. Plants provide some organic variation over the surface, breaking up the now-dirty "clean" lines.
Of all the great information, that's the bit that sticks in my mind for some reason. I'd like to pics of that...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trellick_Tower
https://architectureau.com/articles/the-brutality-of-vertica...
Until last lear, The Lead Developer conference (https://leaddev.com/) was held there, but it's moved to a larger venue for this year (I don't think the size of the main hall was the problem, it was the areas for break out etc.) They had a great talk about the history of the place: https://leaddev.com/leadership/you-are-here-the-story-of-the...
The Barbican Theatre is one of the London homes of the Royal Shakespeare Company, although they are looking to
Unrelated, but recently the complex has been appearing in the general consciousness again as the excellent Apple TV series/spy novels Slow Horses (about a bunch of outcast MI5 agents) is set near there.
(That same Live at the Barbican album is weirdly hard to find because it was a damned Apple Music exclusive. Travesty...)
I'm not sure there is a really, really great concert hall from an acoustics perspective in London. Back in Manchester I loved the Bridgewater because it was designed to be acoustically good no matter how many people were in the audience. I can't think of anything that modern and carefully thought through, so I tend to look for smaller venues with more "classical" approaches to acoustics (Wigmore, St Martins, and so on). Where do you like?
The barbican is odd, mainly because its the only brutalist "council housing estate" that actually mostly worked as intended[1]
If you compare the layout/style to say the haygate estate (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13092349 where attack the block was filmed) or the lesser known aylesbury estate, its more enclosed, but no less brutalist.
What is different is that unlike the southwark estates, it always had the original tenancy requirements upheld (either by tenant action, location or happenstance.) [2]
This meant that it didn't have the massive abandonment in the 90s, left to rot throughout the 00s. The quality of the haygate estate was actually pretty high, secure entry, gardens for the low rise, district heating, trees and playgrounds.
What was fucked up was that the heygate was a dumping ground for undesirables. this mean a spiral of drugs, crime and antisocial behaviour. The barbican escaped most of this because people were too fucking posh.
The social life of the barbican was upheld because of the huge amounts of money poured into the cultural centres that are hidden (and I mean hidden, the place is a fucking impossible maze) Most of the tenant social clubs were disbanded on the other estates, and the halls sold off or leased out to businesses.
In many way, the barbican isn't a great estate in terms of building quality. Its the same as any >60s council property. They all had to be big enough, have a separate kitchen and decent storage.
[1] well its not a mixed class housing estate, its all full of posh design types, and a handful of tenants left over from the 80s
[2] to get a council house, you had to be of good standing, and have a job. It wasn't a place to dumo drugadicts or problem families.
TLDR: the barbican is decent housing because it was reasonably well maintained, and wasn't filled with families in distress, or habitual criminals. We need to build more council estates to the same standard, with the same rules as the 60s.
Much more thought gone into the aesthetics of the Barbican than the Heygate Estate though, which is why the Heygate Estate was the one that ended up as every film scout's first choice of "scary, deprived place" even though it reportedly actually wasn't bad by the standards of south London postwar estates. And that's before taking into account the Barbican's arts facilities and all the money spent maintaining its communcal areas
But a _lot_ of council estates were well designed, but suffered from failed assumptions. The underground parking in the barbican for example was the same design that cause so many issues for estates elsewhere. They were hidden and that meant crime, unless there was tight access control.
https://modernistpilgrimage.com/2015/10/18/trellick-tower-lo... The trellick tower is fucking ugly on the outside, just like the barbican, but even the trellick has some smashing design features. Like most estates at the time, the three bed flats had an upstairs. Not only that, they were bright! Had a balcony.
The difference between the trellick and the barbican is the barbican had middle class people growing plants on the balcony. Until the hipsters moved in, the trellick just had shit.
https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/ has some brilliant insight into council housing, the history, the plans and lots and lots of pictures.
I think the biggest thing to take away is that for a long while council housing _had_ to be better than private. It was partly slum clearance, partly vote winning, partly "you fought for this in the war" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Morris_Committee has the general plan.
Separate kitchens, storage, decent square footage, working heating as a _minimum_ something which even 500k flats struggle to do now.
See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YqP21MQKvA
Anyhow, one day I went a different way and there was this massive, tropical greenhouse. Kinda hard to believe if you've ever seen the place.
https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/event/visit-the-co...
As far as I'm aware, the Barbican Conservatory (Greenhouse) will close for refurbishment at a point next year though. When you go currently, they'll have details of the plans for public consultation. So see it while you can (or then again in 2030 or so).
Such a contrast to the Sky Garden in the City which has all the charm of an airport departure lounge.
https://youtu.be/uDdTUBk-qjo?t=140
https://www.reddit.com/r/architecture/comments/5w9ep7/cross_...
Whether its the Barbican, or "Grad Center" at Brown University, there are all sorts of elevated walkways that you can see from other levels, defying "every floor is like every other floor" expectations.
I think I have vague memories of when being a small child, being filled with wonder at various municipal buildings that did this. Though my memory hazy and I cannot remember the specific buildings.
Interbuilding passageways complicate future renovation and redevelopment, and spreading eyes on the street thinly makes all walking areas harder to secure.
They are also incredibly inconvenient. London had many walkways because they wanted to give cars priority, and they largely became unused and became a source for litter.
Passageways in Hong Kong are popular, but that’s because the pedestrian density is so high they manage to fill both the skywalk and street level. The passageways provide shelter from tropical sun and rain, sometimes even air conditioning. And it’s a very hilly city anyways, so often you are picking between walking uphill on a plain sidewalk vs. doing it on a skywalk with escalators and elevators.
He would rave about the place but I’m not a fan of it personally.
Aesthetically it’s out of place and (in my personal opinion) a bit of an eye sore.
The maze like design seems fun at first but it’s less amusing if you’re the one who’s actually lost in there and have somewhere to be.
The apartments are small and impossible to get the temperature right (too hot in summer, too cold in winter).
But because its iconic people still pay an obscene amount to live there.
The on-site amenities are pretty good, but its central London, you’re not far from literally anything you could imagine or desire. So I’m not sure that’s as much a selling point now than it was when the estate was built.
It’s one of those places you’d have to really love in spite of its warts because it’s so impractical by modern standards.
This is totally inaccurate. It's the business district. If not for the Barbican, the nearest serious art gallery, repertory cinema, music auditorium, are all around half an hour away.
But even half an hour isn’t a long walk. ;)
In theory Leicester Square is a 15 minute drive. In practice you'd have to be mad to drive yourself but you could Uber it.
It’s also a route I’ve done often, hence how I know.
And if you cannot find an art gallery, auditorium nor cinema in Soho then you’re doing something very wrong.
There is a theatre at Tottenham Court Road. It is over 30 minutes away from the Barbican centre by foot (but about 10 minutes by Elizabeth line).
The nearest major art gallery to TCR is not in Soho, but 15-20 minutes from Tottenham Court Road. There are two other major galleries closer to the Barbican than anywhere near Soho. Both are at least 25 minutes by foot and at least 25 minutes by tube.
There isn't an auditorium in Soho, unless you can name one? St-Martin-in-the-fields is no closer than the National portrait gallery, 20 min by foot or 15 by bus from TCR. Easily 25-30 minutes from the Barbican centre by any means of transport.
Likewise there are several repertory cinemas in Soho but none of them are 0 minutes from Tottenham Court Road.
Your claim of 15 minutes by foot was completely laughable. My claim of around 30 minutes in each case was accurate.
Also I never claimed 15 minutes by foot. And given how good public transport is in London, it’s a silly argument for you to make that we can only talk about out walking somewhere.
Plus even if we were just talking about walking, as myself and others have pointed out to you, half an hour isn’t far to walk in central London. Londoners do it all the time.
There really isn’t any need for you to be taking such an aggressive tone here.
You can't, because there isn't one.
You made an incorrect statement, and now you're defending it, but without providing any example at all of what you are claiming exists. So it's a little bit cheeky to claim that I am shifting the goal posts.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/sdW7h8zMb7qj42Nd8?g_st=ic
But if you really care about art then you aren’t going to limit yourself to “major” art galleries (again, speaking from experience here).
This whole argument is absurd. I dont understand why you find it so controversial to claim that a flat in central London would be near pretty much anything you could want. Business district or not, I stand by my statement. If it weren’t true then people wouldn’t pay the premium to live in central London.
Read my comment again:
> It's the business district. If not for the Barbican, the nearest serious art gallery, repertory cinema, music auditorium, are all around half an hour away.
Your single 'counter-example' is a serious art gallery, which is around half an hour away...
You're a lot closer to everything in the Barbican than you are in Croydon or Enfield or Acton or Stratford.
London is big. The City is close enough to the centre that it is central, compared to most of London.
(Personally I think the Barbican is ugly, and I didn't like moving around in it, with long walkways forcing unnatural navigation. It only works, in so far as it works, due to a degree of elite mindshare capture keeping it owned and occupied by the wealthy. Put the same idea in Stratford and come back to somewhere far less pleasant in 20 years.)
Also I’d argue the Santander Cycles are a form of public transport (just not mass transit like buses or the tube)
https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/cycling/Santander-cycles
But honestly, you’re the first Londoner I’ve spoken to who considers 30 minutes by foot a long way away. Even by London standards, that’s close. For suburban dwellers, 30 minutes by foot wouldn’t even get them close to their nearest art gallery (and I don’t even mean “major” galleries either).
And your insistence on limiting things by “major” instances is odd. London has a strong culture of smaller independent amenities. Many of which are a lot closer than Soho and Southbank.
This is honestly the first time I’ve ever heard anyone complain about a zone one apartment being a long way from stuff.
I think the heavy maze like structure was incredibly effective at blocking out the sound of the city and the water features / conservatory made it an amazing place to chill out for a relaxing lunch.
Not quite cyberpunk, not quite solarpunk but somewhere in between and utterly unique.
I was fortunate enough to be in there recently.