But his love for the place was cemented in 1994 when he rented an apartment in Gilbert House, which he bought in 2000 and still calls home. He first encountered the building in 1983 on a trip to London for an interview at the Central School of Art. Elsewhere, we find Fiona Maddocks on music, Lyn Gardner on theatre, Sukhdev Sandhu on cinema, and Tony Chambers on visual arts.Ĭhambers, creative director, former Wallpaper* editor-in-chief and self-professed ‘huge Barbican fanboy’, takes readers on a journey through visual arts. Cultural historian Robert Hewison reflects on how the centre came into being, and architectural historian Elain Harwood offers a deep dive into the building’s design. The book is bolstered with essays by eminent critics who have lived and breathed the centre’s history and art forms. Through fame and infamy, brutal name-calling and calls for its demolition, 40 years later, it remains a melting pot of international arts, and one of the most sought-after residential postcodes in Europe. Some applauded its brave futurism (Įven Queen Elizabeth II hailed it as ‘one of the modern wonders of the world’) others despised its brazen brutalism. When it opened in 1982, its reception ranged from scalding hot to ice cold. The Barbican Centre: ‘one of the modern wonders of the world’ Under a single, 40-acre architectural vision, it encompassed theatre and dance, music of all genres, visual arts, cinema and education, setting its stages for a wide range of artists, communities, audiences and visitors. Designed by young architecture firm Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, the labyrinthine complex symbolised a corner of London rising from the war-torn ashes an example of the shifting worlds of arts and culture in the post-war era, and an icon of modern, democratic living.
The Barbican Centre was, and remains, a place where utopian ideas are made tangible.
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