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eilzo | 9 months ago

The Barbican was never built as social housing - the intended occupants were always central London professional workers and they charged market rates.

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KaiserPro|9 months ago

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.)

notahacker|9 months ago

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

empath75|9 months ago

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_.