London's Barbican rose from a bombed ward where only 48 people still lived
By 1951, wartime bombing had left the Cripplegate ward of the City of London almost empty, with just 48 residents. Planners replaced it with a raw concrete village of walkways, towers and lakes for well-paid professionals. Once widely loathed, the Barbican is now listed and treasured as a landmark of British brutalism.
The site has deep roots. Roman London's fort stood nearby, and the name comes from a Low Latin word for a fortified gateway or outpost, probably a Roman watchtower in front of the wall. Medieval nobles later built great houses on the spot, and part of the land was the cemetery of London's Jewish community until the expulsion of 1290. Excavations before construction were published in 1961, and remnants of the Roman wall can still be seen from some balconies.
The City decided on 19 September 1957 to build homes there, and architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, fresh from the neighbouring Golden Lane Estate, designed the scheme. Unlike Golden Lane, it was never social housing: flats were let at commercial rents and marketed to affluent City workers, and early tenants included politicians, judges and bankers. Even an underground railway was moved, with 500 metres of the Metropolitan line realigned between 1963 and 1965. Speed House opened in 1969, but strikes delayed the final block, Shakespeare Tower, until 1976.
The result separates people from traffic entirely. Residents move along highwalks, usually one to three storeys above the streets, while cars are pushed to the edges or below. Terrace blocks surround a lake and gardens, including a wildlife garden run by the community, and a district heating system does away with chimneys. Three towers of 42 storeys, at 123 metres, were once the tallest homes in London. Around 4,000 people live in its 2,014 flats, most now privately owned after Right to Buy.
Buildings are named after figures linked to the area, including Daniel Defoe, John Bunyan, the explorer Martin Frobisher and Christopher Mountjoy, the French wig-maker who rented a room to Shakespeare. When the arts minister Tessa Blackstone announced Grade II listing in September 2001, many were calling for brutalist buildings to be torn down; the estate was praised instead for its scale, cohesion and ambition.
Source: Barbican Estate
