The whole estate, from arts complex to razor-sharp triangular housing towers, has been listed. It’s official: this bush-hammered concrete vision of the future (as the future appeared in the late 1950s) is now deemed architecturally and historically important. It joins the list of previously derided concrete buildings to be rehabilitated, from Erno Goldfinger’s tower blocks to the Royal National Theatre. There has been, says the arts centre director John Tusa, a change of attitude that has gone hand-in-hand with the shift towards more contemporary programming in the theatres, cinemas, concert hall and art galleries. People over 40 are more likely to complain about getting lost in a concrete jungle. People under 40 don’t have any problem with the place. And, since the audiences are starting to get younger, there’s less carping.
The 60-acre area was bombed flat during the Blitz, and plans for its reconstruction began to be mooted in the mid 1950s. First designed in 1959 by architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, whose life work this became, it was not finally brought to fruition until the opening of the Arts Centre in 1982. There were appalling construction delays, especially on the towers, in the early years. Those were the tallest residential towers in Europe, and with their serrated-knife outline and highly sculptural tops, they rose to the occasion. Visiting a flat at the top of one of those towers is still a breathtaking experience, especially when you find that one or two even have open roof terraces, all that way up in the air. Meanwhile the low-rise housing blocks, set around calm, well-landscaped courtyards were and are highly successful.
By the time the arts centre, hosting both the LSO and the Royal Shakespeare Company, was opened, its visually massive concrete architecture and raised walkway system were well out of fashion. By then, high-tech was in the ascendant and what was essentially late 1950s architecture, by a generation of architects approaching retirement, was out in the cold. A shame: there were good ideas to follow up in the Barbican, among them the ingenious disguising of the theatre’s tall flytower by wrapping a public botanical glasshouse round it, and the total separation of pedestrians and vehicles. Despite its slavish adherence to the domination of the motor car, with huge parking garages built into the infrastructure and vehicle ramps disfiguring the northern entrance to the arts complex, virtually the whole of the Barbican estate, once you’re in it, is a tranquil, car-free pedestrian zone.
As a model for high-density urban living of the kind we are all being urged to consider today, it has few peers. But as its name implies, it is a fortress. It does not weave itself into the surrounding cityscape at all. This is because it was predicated upon a complete high-level pedestrian walkway system extending throughout the City: a system that was pursued vigorously for some years, and then gradually forgotten. The surviving fragments of the walkway system are in their way as evocative Roman city wall that was carefully revealed during construction. The City has now gone in another direction entirely: instead of separating pedestrians and cars, it actively discourages car use, with great success. The fact that this change of heart came about as a result of terrorist bombings does not alter the effectiveness of the outcome.
