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.
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.
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 :)
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.
"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."
Years ago I bought a flat and it came with an underground parking garage. Once we were settled in I break the garage lock and inside was an old Peugot, cans of old motor oil, and all sorts of junk shoved in between the garage door cracks. It was hell to get rid of the thing. The tires were flat. No title meant no tow trucks wanted to touch it and no scrap yard was willing to accept it. After too many months I was able to get the city to declare the car derelict. And then I had to pay a scrap yard to accept it.
I _really_ appreciate Tokyo's system of basically forcing you to affirmatively declare your parking spot when you buy a car, on top of the usual "pay extra rent to have a parking space" thing that happens in many spots.
While it doesn't stop cars from being abandoned "randomly", just the entire principle of having a paper trail for these things and creating a bunch of incentives to make sure that parking spots don't turn into trash heaps[0].
Especially now that I live in a place where street parking is a prime resource and yet people _who have garages_ still choose to street park out of convenience...
[0]: not always of course, I know about the trash houses
Kinda weird that it would hard to track down the owner of a car. Technically you can get the own from the VIN, which may be the estate for a deceased person. Getting them to actually take action is a different matter obviously
As a total noob about the cars or buying flats or the location you are from, my first though was that why didn't you get it fixed and drive it away. But you won't have the papers then. Do the scrap yards not accept it for the same reason?
> After too many months I was able to get the city to declare the car derelict. And then I had to pay a scrap yard to accept it.
I’m assuming there contents of the garage became your property, and thus legal liability, when you purchased the flat?
Since the property is derelict and you weren’t aware of it previously, and the disposal of the property caused undue effort and cost, would the failure to disclose the contents of the garage by the former owner and/or their agent constitute some kind of breach of duty or some other kind of contract violation?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
(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.
Part of the thinking behind the Barbican's somewhat hidden entrances to the estate and tts maze-like layout was that they would reduce foot traffic, and it totally worked. Not many people use the public estate high-walks as a shortcut to get across the City. This has a wonderful effect wherein you're surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the City, while being just a touch insulated from it.
I lived there for the better part of a year and it completely changed my perspective on living in London. More city-life should be like the Barbican.
I visited after having read Jane Jacobs the year before and becoming quite sympathetic to her vision of city life and active neighbourhoods through mixed uses. The Barbican felt like the philosophical opposite.
I read somewhere, I wish I could remember where, that some urban designers in the 60s had the feeling that people should spend their recreation time in their private homes rather than outside.
The Barbican felt like it had achieved that ideal of lifelessness, with bizarrely large and featureless open spaces, scant seating, etc. Of course that contrasted with the spaces around the arts centre which were bustling.
The Barbican is such a striking example of an architectural utopia, built not just as housing, but as a statement about how people could live, work, and engage with culture in one integrated space.
Few others worth exploring...
Walden 7 (Spain): A labyrinthine, colorful complex by Ricardo Bofill with inner courtyards and skybridges, aiming for a more social urban life based on B.F. Skinner's Walden Two philosophy.
Arcosanti (USA): Paolo Soleri’s desert experiment in “arcology”, architecture + ecology—exploring sustainable living in a compact footprint.
Unité d'Habitation (France): Le Corbusier’s "vertical garden city" combining apartments, shops, and communal spaces into one concrete megastructure.
Habitat 67 (Canada): Modular housing units stacked like Lego, Moshe Safdie’s vision for dense yet humane urban living.
Auroville (India): Founded in the 1960s as an experimental township aiming for human unity beyond politics and religion.
I'm not sure how to feel about most of those these days. They are iconic and I'm glad that experimental ideas actually made it to completion, but ultimately they have failed at reimagining life for ordinary people.
In the cases of the buildings, over time their value has increased faster than an average dwelling in the vicinity, making them more exclusive and restricting access to those higher and higher up the socio-economic ladder - effectively turning them into gated community without the residents needing to feel the guilt of living behind physical gates.
The buildings are still there, and they have inhabitants, but the investment potential has long outlived any philosophy. I guess you could argue there are some secondary effects from their influence, but I wonder how the architects would feel today.
The apartments are lovely, but the service charges are eye-watering, ranging from around £6,000 per year for a two-bedroom, to £14,400 for the more expensive ones:
And all are sold on that weird UK feudal relic, leaseholds, so you're just buying for a certain number of years - a couple of the ones above only have ~80 years remaining.
The inaccesibility for mere mortals ruins any claim it has to being a representative of brutalism, IMO. Of course it looks nice, it was made by the City of London at eyewatering cost with absurd levels of craftmanship. The movement wouldn't have such a bad image if other buildings had that kind of budget for upkeep and gardening. But they don't: they're rotten and barren.
That’s on the cheap end of zone 1 London for service charges, especially anything with a porter and gardeners. If you were buying now you’d renew the lease for about £20k, which is a tiny fraction of the purchase price you’d be paying. (Source: did it in 2022)
My office was right next to Barbican, I was going to rent a place there but I cheaped out. Still bitter about it.
The thing about Barbican is that it is an opinionated living complex. People who built it had an idea on how the urban living is supposed to be and sculptured that in concrete. Very few things are changeable there, that's why it also feels like a different time.
I enjoyed walking from my office to the tube and get amazed by this giant place everyday. Never seized to amaze me. I would occasionally go there and work at the public places, it was often empty enough to find corners or passages where I can just observer the life happening in distance.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It is utterly weird to me that so many commenters here appreciate the Barbican's aesthetics. To me, it is an ugly eyesore that's a legacy of the brutalist wave of the mid-20th century. I lived close to it (in Islington) for many months, and avoided walking through it to get to the City (where I worked).
Maybe because other brutalist estates in London aren’t nearly as well kept or, uh, wealthy, than the Barbican is. And perhaps it’s uncommon to wander through such estates when you don’t live in them.
The old Robin Hood Gardens before they were demolished were quite unwelcoming, looking from the outside. You wouldn’t go anywhere near those kind of estates unless you were a resident, and you’d have a very different impression as someone who saw what it was like internally.
Like - at least in my opinion - many brutalist buildings, it's ugly from the outside and gorgeous on the inside. I've explored it many times, and agree with everything in this article and in the positive comments in the thread. And... I kinda agree with you, too. What experience - interior or exterior - architects should prioritize is an interesting conundrum.
Brutalism was a reactionary movement against ornate Victorian and Georgian architecture, which was seen as elitist and emblematic of the "property owning class"
> In the United Kingdom, brutalism was featured in the design of utilitarian, low-cost social housing influenced by socialist principles and soon spread to other regions around the world, while being echoed by similar styles like in Eastern Europe
So beware the vocal minority of English socialists that have a politically-tainted take on this architecture.
The rest of us agree with you. It's offensively ugly!
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.
I have many memories of barrelling through on skates with friends, and one of my favourite memories is of filming a mate skating through some flaming cones that another friend had made, basically mini molotov cocktails of small bottles filled with paraffin, we set them in a long line outside the church opposite the water and spent an hour skating around and filming ourselves. This was pre-2001, I cannot believe some of the shit we used to do.
Elsewhere in the place, I have loved going to exhibitions, theatre plays, gigs and the cinema. It's a one-stop cultural hub that evokes the glamour of flying in the olden days.
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.
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.
Me and my 10 year old kid were playing quake 1 together, a map pack called Brutalism jam. Having discussed the style we went to barbican, saw the greenhouse and walked around the complex for a while.
The kid couldn't stop talking about it for months! Amazing place (also a surreal map pack).
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.
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.
I did my music postgrad at the Guildhall school of music and drama, which is in the Barbican. Fun facts:
1) Orlando Bloom did the drama course when we were there. Famous music students there include Bryn Terfel, Jaqueline du pre and tons of others.
2) I say we because my wife did a music postgrad there at the same time but we didn’t meet until we left even though we were once on the same openday concert program together. (My composition was chosen to represent the jazz courses so I was in a group that played that - my wife won a chamber music award so she was playing later in the concert with a guitarist, but us jazzers didn’t get to see that).
3) We didn’t meet because she did early music whereas I did the jazz course and all the lessons on the jazz course were underground. You may think I am joking but literally all our lessons were in the basement except for if we had a visiting musician do a masterclass (then they used to use one of the nice airy and bright above-ground rooms, some of which have a lovely view of the lake).
4) As well as the concert hall which people have mentioned, there is a theatre and at least 2 cinemas as part of the Barbican complex. If you know where to look there are parts of the old roman wall and at least 2 ruined medieval churches. You are also not far at all from one of London’s real hidden gems, the cathedral of St Bartholomew the great, a medieval cathedral down a little side alley near Smithfield market that tons of people in London don’t even know exists. Oh and for Americans, Benjamin Franklin once worked there as a typesetter[1]
My wife now teaches at the Guildhall. It’s a pretty special place especially this time of year when it’s nice. You can go sit out by the lake in the sunshine, watch the ducks etc. It’s really peaceful even though you are yards from old street, moorgate, liverpool street etc some of the busiest parts of london.
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)!
Interesting that they took out the hospital/clinic ? Seems like it would be useful. In the US there are 'golf course to the grave' type communities for adults who want to go smoothly from the 50's into the afterlife. And when I was a teen I read Silverberg's book "The World Inside"[1] which postulated the "Urbmon" a complete community in a single structure. That has always fascinated me, the question of "Can you build a carbon neutral self sustaining human community?" I presume you can but how effective would it be? The Barbican looks like an interesting take on mixed use.
"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...
The Barbican is one of my favorite places on Earth and this post in a simple way does such a good job of capturing the beauty and wonder I associate with it. Others have mentioned the greenhouse and the concert hall; I’ll the exhibition space which consistently hosts great exhibits including the only good AI-themed museum exhibit I’ve ever seen (and it was back in 2019).
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.
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.
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.
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).
If you wanna get some more footage of the buildings and inhabitants, I can recommend checking out Bêka & Lemoine's "Barbicania" --- https://vimeo.com/ondemand/barbicania
This site also seems to have lots of background info and details on various aspects of the buildings, though I haven't explored in depth --- https://www.barbicanliving.co.uk
People always ask which camera or lens I use, hence I added it upfront. Leica's are expensive I agree. It was a dream of mine to use it though for almost two decades. I finally was in a position to get it three years ago.
To your question, the RAW's, unprocessed files are not like this from a Leica. You need to color grade (photographers say "post processing"). Color grading is used mostly for Video. In Photography, there are a lot of other things, it's mostly about light, not color. Highlights, Shadows, Contrast, Blacks/Whites etc.. Of course colors are also very important.
If you want good colors straight out of the camera, you could look into FujiFilm.
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!
Two less mentioned sides of the Barbican that I love:
- how much design work was put into it. So many of it, from little bits and bobs (an awning, an electric socket, a doorframe), to the overall layout are unique to the area they are in and aren't copy-pasted elsewhere! It creates a coherent, but varying ensamble that is vibrant and alive, and is not just a grid of repeated elements.
- relatedly, how deeply organic the maze of the Barbican is. Contrast the raw concrete of the Barbican with the flowing lines of the Walkie-Talkie: one has an organic and smooth shape, but is really a 3D grid of repeated blocks; the other is made entirely of exposed raw concrete, but you never know what you will see around a corner. In this sense, the Barbican is more organic than most modern architecture. It's a place of wonder and surprise.
(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?
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”).
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
I personally love the brutalist and gigantic architecture of this time. Jam pack the flats, leave space for nature and public areas around it. Fairly standard in developed Asia, rare outside of ghettos in the West. Every time I discuss it with others, it's a hard sell against the "bbq with your neighbors in your back garden" so many aspire to by moving in suburbian houses.
Nice article. I like the Barbican and have spent a fair bit of time there over the last 25 years. I even worked out how to get from A to B without getting lost. Not been recently though.
The appearance of various Barbican adjacent locations in Slow Horses was a nice touch. And very on-point given the nature of Slough House.
Do they still have the rubber foot pedals to make the water come out of the taps in the public loos? Of course, being the Barbican the loos smell appalling and the taps frequently don't work, but it's all part of the charm.
Fascinating! I spent the past two days at a software conference in the Barbican. (The SDD conf). The place is truly beautiful in a brutalistic way. Had lunch in the greenhouse.
There is a giant indoor climate controlled greenhouse which allows visitors that has a heated patio in the middle to sit. Makes a great place to lounge in the winters.
Lived there for a while. Inside those buildings. It's one ugly place that hurts an eye and the skyline of beautiful city of London. Those photos do it a great favor. But it has its charm if you're into that sort of thing.
There used to be an iconic club Fabric it was called. Nearby Farringdon is my favourite place in London. Most underrated area.
The stunning architecture is what makes it unique. Truly beautiful and one-of-a-kind, it's a work of art. Most of the functional stuff mentioned (underground parking, cradle to grave amenities, online community, (music) academy inside the complex) is bog standard living in much of Korea, and I imagine modern China as well.
People who enjoy the Barbican should also like SFU campus in Burnaby in metro Vancouver, and the well known concrete waffle on West Georgia St. The concrete waffle office tower was also CGIed into american nazi party headquarters in "The Man in the High Castle".
I've been there for two convention-type meetings, on completely different subjects but in the same space. I kept feeling I was in the private space of residents while trying to find a meeting room.
It is a tragedy that this kind of visionary architecture isn't the mainstay of housing in the UK. I used to live in Park Hill in Sheffield, and the sheer beauty of those clean lines against a blue sky is hard to understate.
It looks a lot like Mass Effect Citadel, with the water reservoir in the middle. I'm surprised to not found some link documenting if it was inspired by it.
The events, cultural activities and especially some of the curated exhibitions at the Barbican have been outstanding. Highly recommend to anyone visiting London.
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.
Even though it serves as expensive housing for private purchase, it still manages to exude Soviet central-planned estate vibes.
Walking around this imposing concrete structure, you feel its soullessness and brutalism. They made attempts to introduce greenery (like the temperate greenhouse area), but in the 21st century those areas are tired, poorly maintained and generally devoid of any visitors. The glass is misty or greening. The water features are stagnant. The concrete has aged poorly, with cracking and visible degradation.
London is full of beautiful Victorian and Georgian architecture, so brutalist concrete buildings look cringeworthy by comparison.. but they do seem to tickle the fancy of the socialist intelligentia, who love to proclaim how clever it all is - clever in a way that the common non-socialist folk simply wouldn't understand.
petercooper|9 months ago
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.
freyfogle|9 months ago
simonw|9 months ago
Thanks for that, put a smile on my face.
philipwhiuk|9 months ago
And about 200ft. Such is the maze-like nature of the Barbican.
tshanmu|9 months ago
randomcarbloke|9 months ago
unknown|9 months ago
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fennecfoxy|9 months ago
It's not so bad once you head out into the counties either I suppose.
yardie|9 months ago
Years ago I bought a flat and it came with an underground parking garage. Once we were settled in I break the garage lock and inside was an old Peugot, cans of old motor oil, and all sorts of junk shoved in between the garage door cracks. It was hell to get rid of the thing. The tires were flat. No title meant no tow trucks wanted to touch it and no scrap yard was willing to accept it. After too many months I was able to get the city to declare the car derelict. And then I had to pay a scrap yard to accept it.
rtpg|9 months ago
While it doesn't stop cars from being abandoned "randomly", just the entire principle of having a paper trail for these things and creating a bunch of incentives to make sure that parking spots don't turn into trash heaps[0].
Especially now that I live in a place where street parking is a prime resource and yet people _who have garages_ still choose to street park out of convenience...
[0]: not always of course, I know about the trash houses
mrweasel|9 months ago
pmg101|9 months ago
I bet someone would have been absolutely delighted to have that old Peugeot!
smusamashah|9 months ago
aspenmayer|9 months ago
I’m assuming there contents of the garage became your property, and thus legal liability, when you purchased the flat?
Since the property is derelict and you weren’t aware of it previously, and the disposal of the property caused undue effort and cost, would the failure to disclose the contents of the garage by the former owner and/or their agent constitute some kind of breach of duty or some other kind of contract violation?
oniony|9 months ago
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...
farslan|9 months ago
mattkevan|9 months ago
Such a contrast to the Sky Garden in the City which has all the charm of an airport departure lounge.
Angostura|9 months ago
stavros|9 months ago
jaqalopes|9 months ago
comprev|9 months ago
phatfish|9 months ago
rjmunro|9 months ago
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
libraryofbabel|9 months ago
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.
farslan|9 months ago
sdenton4|9 months ago
(That same Live at the Barbican album is weirdly hard to find because it was a damned Apple Music exclusive. Travesty...)
te_chris|9 months ago
teajunky|9 months ago
curiousgal|9 months ago
DrakeDeaton|9 months ago
I lived there for the better part of a year and it completely changed my perspective on living in London. More city-life should be like the Barbican.
crabmusket|9 months ago
I read somewhere, I wish I could remember where, that some urban designers in the 60s had the feeling that people should spend their recreation time in their private homes rather than outside.
The Barbican felt like it had achieved that ideal of lifelessness, with bizarrely large and featureless open spaces, scant seating, etc. Of course that contrasted with the spaces around the arts centre which were bustling.
justincormack|9 months ago
iamacyborg|9 months ago
I lived for a while on Bedford Avenue between the British Museum and TCR and it was dead quiet, despite the location.
rriley|9 months ago
Few others worth exploring...
Walden 7 (Spain): A labyrinthine, colorful complex by Ricardo Bofill with inner courtyards and skybridges, aiming for a more social urban life based on B.F. Skinner's Walden Two philosophy.
Arcosanti (USA): Paolo Soleri’s desert experiment in “arcology”, architecture + ecology—exploring sustainable living in a compact footprint.
Unité d'Habitation (France): Le Corbusier’s "vertical garden city" combining apartments, shops, and communal spaces into one concrete megastructure.
Habitat 67 (Canada): Modular housing units stacked like Lego, Moshe Safdie’s vision for dense yet humane urban living.
Auroville (India): Founded in the 1960s as an experimental township aiming for human unity beyond politics and religion.
tweetle_beetle|9 months ago
In the cases of the buildings, over time their value has increased faster than an average dwelling in the vicinity, making them more exclusive and restricting access to those higher and higher up the socio-economic ladder - effectively turning them into gated community without the residents needing to feel the guilt of living behind physical gates.
The buildings are still there, and they have inhabitants, but the investment potential has long outlived any philosophy. I guess you could argue there are some secondary effects from their influence, but I wonder how the architects would feel today.
See also Park Hill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Hill%2C_Sheffield
frereubu|9 months ago
https://themodernhouse.com/sales-list/thomas-more-house-ii
https://themodernhouse.com/sales-list/Lauderdale-Tower-II
https://themodernhouse.com/sales-list/willoughby-house
https://themodernhouse.com/sales-list/ben-jonson-house-iii
And all are sold on that weird UK feudal relic, leaseholds, so you're just buying for a certain number of years - a couple of the ones above only have ~80 years remaining.
IshKebab|9 months ago
devnullbrain|9 months ago
nbevans|9 months ago
pledg|9 months ago
eru|9 months ago
If they lowered the service charges tomorrow, that would just mean that the headline market price of the apartments would go up to compensate.
If they moved from leasehold to freehold tomorrow, you would also see that reflected in the price.
mrtksn|9 months ago
The thing about Barbican is that it is an opinionated living complex. People who built it had an idea on how the urban living is supposed to be and sculptured that in concrete. Very few things are changeable there, that's why it also feels like a different time.
I enjoyed walking from my office to the tube and get amazed by this giant place everyday. Never seized to amaze me. I would occasionally go there and work at the public places, it was often empty enough to find corners or passages where I can just observer the life happening in distance.
Here's a couple of photos: https://dropover.cloud/09cb4c
Ericson2314|9 months ago
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.
bobthepanda|9 months ago
Interbuilding passageways complicate future renovation and redevelopment, and spreading eyes on the street thinly makes all walking areas harder to secure.
xnx|9 months ago
paulsmith|9 months ago
I was reading this post and thinking, huh, this would be a good set for a Coruscant shot in Andor, and sure enough ...
sambeau|9 months ago
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...
SideburnsOfDoom|9 months ago
which is good too, it's a mix of Black comedy and spy tension.
pkd|9 months ago
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_67
JimDabell|9 months ago
https://www.architectural-review.com/today/the-interlace-in-...
dllu|9 months ago
porphyra|9 months ago
jgilias|9 months ago
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.
wgrover|9 months ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/architecture/comments/5w9ep7/cross_...
dabreegster|9 months ago
mjamil|9 months ago
ljm|9 months ago
The old Robin Hood Gardens before they were demolished were quite unwelcoming, looking from the outside. You wouldn’t go anywhere near those kind of estates unless you were a resident, and you’d have a very different impression as someone who saw what it was like internally.
eszed|9 months ago
IshKebab|9 months ago
It's awful if you're walking along actual roads though. I would avoid it too.
cbeach|9 months ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture
> In the United Kingdom, brutalism was featured in the design of utilitarian, low-cost social housing influenced by socialist principles and soon spread to other regions around the world, while being echoed by similar styles like in Eastern Europe
So beware the vocal minority of English socialists that have a politically-tainted take on this architecture.
The rest of us agree with you. It's offensively ugly!
gadders|9 months ago
grumpy-de-sre|9 months ago
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.
vr46|9 months ago
Elsewhere in the place, I have loved going to exhibitions, theatre plays, gigs and the cinema. It's a one-stop cultural hub that evokes the glamour of flying in the olden days.
hnlmorg|9 months ago
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.
dreghgh|9 months ago
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.
sagacity|9 months ago
vkazanov|9 months ago
Me and my 10 year old kid were playing quake 1 together, a map pack called Brutalism jam. Having discussed the style we went to barbican, saw the greenhouse and walked around the complex for a while.
The kid couldn't stop talking about it for months! Amazing place (also a surreal map pack).
tetris11|9 months ago
munificent|9 months ago
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.
rwmj|9 months ago
moomin|9 months ago
Fun fact: a good chunk of the video to “As It Was” was shot there.
seanhunter|9 months ago
1) Orlando Bloom did the drama course when we were there. Famous music students there include Bryn Terfel, Jaqueline du pre and tons of others.
2) I say we because my wife did a music postgrad there at the same time but we didn’t meet until we left even though we were once on the same openday concert program together. (My composition was chosen to represent the jazz courses so I was in a group that played that - my wife won a chamber music award so she was playing later in the concert with a guitarist, but us jazzers didn’t get to see that).
3) We didn’t meet because she did early music whereas I did the jazz course and all the lessons on the jazz course were underground. You may think I am joking but literally all our lessons were in the basement except for if we had a visiting musician do a masterclass (then they used to use one of the nice airy and bright above-ground rooms, some of which have a lovely view of the lake).
4) As well as the concert hall which people have mentioned, there is a theatre and at least 2 cinemas as part of the Barbican complex. If you know where to look there are parts of the old roman wall and at least 2 ruined medieval churches. You are also not far at all from one of London’s real hidden gems, the cathedral of St Bartholomew the great, a medieval cathedral down a little side alley near Smithfield market that tons of people in London don’t even know exists. Oh and for Americans, Benjamin Franklin once worked there as a typesetter[1]
My wife now teaches at the Guildhall. It’s a pretty special place especially this time of year when it’s nice. You can go sit out by the lake in the sunshine, watch the ducks etc. It’s really peaceful even though you are yards from old street, moorgate, liverpool street etc some of the busiest parts of london.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Bartholomew-the-Great
Reason077|9 months ago
ChuckMcM|9 months ago
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Inside
SirFatty|9 months ago
Of all the great information, that's the bit that sticks in my mind for some reason. I'd like to pics of that...
trainyperson|9 months ago
For those interested / invested, they recently launched a Barbican renewal project: https://www.barbican.org.uk/our-story/press-room/barbican-un...
KaiserPro|9 months ago
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.
eilzo|9 months ago
philipwhiuk|9 months ago
See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YqP21MQKvA
probabletrain|9 months ago
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.
Karrot_Kream|9 months ago
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.
munificent|9 months ago
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.
gus_massa|9 months ago
IIUC it's the half circle at the top and the rectangular building at the bottom with a green park between them.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF|9 months ago
didsomeonesay|9 months ago
bschne|9 months ago
This site also seems to have lots of background info and details on various aspects of the buildings, though I haven't explored in depth --- https://www.barbicanliving.co.uk
farslan|9 months ago
jbl0ndie|9 months ago
Another fun Barbican fact is their Garchey System for waste disposal.
The wet food waste is collected communally and taken away by custom-built tanker vehicles that connect to the holding tanks. https://www.barbicanliving.co.uk/barbican-now/garchey/the-ga...
Karrot_Kream|9 months ago
I've never shot Leica. Is this color grading something you can pull straight out of the camera, or is this applied in post?
(Also wow that is expensive kit.)
farslan|9 months ago
To your question, the RAW's, unprocessed files are not like this from a Leica. You need to color grade (photographers say "post processing"). Color grading is used mostly for Video. In Photography, there are a lot of other things, it's mostly about light, not color. Highlights, Shadows, Contrast, Blacks/Whites etc.. Of course colors are also very important.
If you want good colors straight out of the camera, you could look into FujiFilm.
mullingitover|9 months ago
pillefitz|9 months ago
phoh|9 months ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trellick_Tower
https://architectureau.com/articles/the-brutality-of-vertica...
dgroshev|9 months ago
- how much design work was put into it. So many of it, from little bits and bobs (an awning, an electric socket, a doorframe), to the overall layout are unique to the area they are in and aren't copy-pasted elsewhere! It creates a coherent, but varying ensamble that is vibrant and alive, and is not just a grid of repeated elements.
- relatedly, how deeply organic the maze of the Barbican is. Contrast the raw concrete of the Barbican with the flowing lines of the Walkie-Talkie: one has an organic and smooth shape, but is really a 3D grid of repeated blocks; the other is made entirely of exposed raw concrete, but you never know what you will see around a corner. In this sense, the Barbican is more organic than most modern architecture. It's a place of wonder and surprise.
I love the Barbican.
tim333|9 months ago
It was also the setting for part of Harry Styles As It Was https://youtu.be/H5v3kku4y6Q
derriz|9 months ago
cal85|9 months ago
farslan|9 months ago
simgt|9 months ago
I personally love the brutalist and gigantic architecture of this time. Jam pack the flats, leave space for nature and public areas around it. Fairly standard in developed Asia, rare outside of ghettos in the West. Every time I discuss it with others, it's a hard sell against the "bbq with your neighbors in your back garden" so many aspire to by moving in suburbian houses.
benbristow|9 months ago
https://www.barbicantalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31087
chrisstu|9 months ago
The appearance of various Barbican adjacent locations in Slow Horses was a nice touch. And very on-point given the nature of Slough House.
Do they still have the rubber foot pedals to make the water come out of the taps in the public loos? Of course, being the Barbican the loos smell appalling and the taps frequently don't work, but it's all part of the charm.
nephrenka|9 months ago
itissid|9 months ago
michalu|9 months ago
There used to be an iconic club Fabric it was called. Nearby Farringdon is my favourite place in London. Most underrated area.
graemep|9 months ago
Theatre, concert hall, library, cinema and a few other things in the building. well kept gardens. Friendly and peaceful.
eru|9 months ago
It's an interesting place to be sure, but I wouldn't praise it nearly as much as the article does.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43966676 expresses some of what I felt.
dewey|9 months ago
https://themodernhouse.com/sales-list/defoe-house-II
Edit: Just saw there's another comment with some other listings from that website, they are all quite nice.
renewiltord|9 months ago
jjani|9 months ago
jonwinstanley|9 months ago
https://www.nadamaktari.com/nadamaktari-memorylog/architectu...
walrus01|9 months ago
electrosphere|9 months ago
The Barbican is Coruscant.
Animats|9 months ago
Never got up high enough to see the greenhouse.
hkt|9 months ago
A_Duck|9 months ago
There's a lot less of that feeling out in the world of 2025 but you can still find it if you look.
codeulike|9 months ago
https://www.barbican.org.uk/
gt0|9 months ago
earlyriser|9 months ago
globular-toast|9 months ago
petepete|9 months ago
arnab_optimatik|9 months ago
verytrivial|9 months ago
manmal|9 months ago
EbNar|9 months ago
SideburnsOfDoom|9 months ago
I was fortunate enough to be in there recently.
scoofy|9 months ago
zombot|9 months ago
The author misspelled Londinium.
farslan|9 months ago
cbeach|9 months ago
Walking around this imposing concrete structure, you feel its soullessness and brutalism. They made attempts to introduce greenery (like the temperate greenhouse area), but in the 21st century those areas are tired, poorly maintained and generally devoid of any visitors. The glass is misty or greening. The water features are stagnant. The concrete has aged poorly, with cracking and visible degradation.
London is full of beautiful Victorian and Georgian architecture, so brutalist concrete buildings look cringeworthy by comparison.. but they do seem to tickle the fancy of the socialist intelligentia, who love to proclaim how clever it all is - clever in a way that the common non-socialist folk simply wouldn't understand.
drcongo|9 months ago
farslan|9 months ago
mobiuscog|9 months ago
...left unsurprised.
kristel100|9 months ago
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Klaus_|9 months ago
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khalfan-shah098|9 months ago
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ArthurStacks|9 months ago
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projektfu|9 months ago
eilzo|9 months ago
philipwhiuk|9 months ago