IITheBarbican

Disposition of Space

The Barbican Centre is an iconic Brutalist development within the City of London, built between 1965 and 1976.The scheme was designed by Chamberlin Powell and Bon in 1955, with the intention to reverse the population decline in the area which was bombed during the Second World War. The Barbican’s development includes the art venues of the Barbican Centre, a public library, and the Museum of London, as well as the Barbican Estate which comprises of 3 tower blocks, 13 terrace blocks, 2 mews and a row of town houses. 19

In an essay by Elaine Harwood for ‘Building Utopia: The Barbican Centre’, it is said that Geoffry Powell “acknowledged le Corbusier to be the greatest inspiration for the Barbican, suggesting that the Unite d’Habitation in Marseille, which he had visited soon after its completion was the only language of architecture at the time”

Additionally, an entry by Frank woods, a younger partner to the architects, described how in the studios, the Barbican was perceived from the view of modernists, not even using the word ‘Brutalism’ to refer to the concrete, but using it as a material which was readily available. He further explains that the Barbican has taken generations to be constructed, absorbed, and regarded as an international model of its kind, and as time passes, the Barbican “grows to match and reflect the society in which it will stand” 20 This implies the Barbican as a permanently changing monument as the world changes, where its architecture will not fail to be read as part of the urban context and society of its time. This can be quite contradicting to the evolution of Brutalism as a style of architecture, where ‘isolation’ and ‘alienation’ are terms often used to describe its place within our contexts, further entertaining the thought of whether the Barbican was initially accepted by society as a modernist ideal and utopia rather than an example of Brutalism and if it still is.