Step into a surreal alternate reality, a post-World War II residential estate imagined by visionary architects in Sixties London. Decades after World War II bombings flattened huge expanses of central London, the city decided to do something with the space. The Barbican promised to entice wealthy Londoners back to live in the inner-city (suburban life was quite trendy in the post-war Fifties) with modern, luxury apartments 'of the future'.
The result is a scene that feels vastly different to the rest of London. You get the feeling you've walked into a dystopian science fiction film of the Seventies with the cold brutalist architecture and rows on rows of identical-looking apartment buildings. It's a little eerie. There's an art gallery, cinema, theatre, library, concert hall, cafe and bars too within the cultural complex.
Silk Street,
London EC2Y 8DS
︎ Map
︎ barbican.org.uk
