This was great and the photos were good too!

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

Possibly getting some more attention now because of some scenes from Andor 2 that were shot there: https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/1kb8k4u/lloyds_of_l...

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.

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.

> all the photos where shoot with the Leica M11 + 35mm Summilux FLE

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.

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)!

When people point to examples of bad brutalist architecture, I point them to the Barbican as a beautiful counter-example.

"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...

Not mentioned in the article, but this was what J. G. Ballard's novel (and later film) High Rise was based on.

Ooh, another arcology. There's a little one in Alaska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begich_Towers

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

RANT ALERT:

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.

No, it's definitely ugly and an abomination. One of London's worst and probably, unfortunately, historically protected.

I'm glad people appreciate the building. You all can have it... it's just not for me.

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.

https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/event/visit-the-co...

Here's a cross-section through the theatre portion of the Barbican showing the complexity of the engineering:

https://www.reddit.com/r/architecture/comments/5w9ep7/cross_...

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.

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.

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.

Glad you enjoyed your visit, lovely photos too.

FYI, there's also a conservatory (A glass roofed garden room) on level 3

I was fortunate enough to be in there recently.

(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?

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.

That's amusing... I learned about this building during my english proficiency exam, as the "listening" part narrated its story.

I have lived there many years ago and it was amazing.

Theatre, concert hall, library, cinema and a few other things in the building. well kept gardens. Friendly and peaceful.

> Leica M11 + 35mm Summilux FLE

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.)

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).

For those interested / invested, they recently launched a Barbican renewal project: https://www.barbican.org.uk/our-story/press-room/barbican-un...

"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.

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.

Odd use of "nit". Generally one nitpicks someone else's work, but I guess you can do you own nitpicking? Don't think this is common, though.

There's also the Barbican Centre that a cinema/theatre/concert hall, they have some great stuff there

https://www.barbican.org.uk/

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.

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.