5 Highlights from the Barbican Archive
The Barbican Centre is famous for three things: its stunning brutalist architecture, its beautifully eclectic international programme and the fact that everyone gets lost. Here are five of our favourite items from the collection which bring together these themes.
I Found the Barbican Badge by Photography by Max ColsonBarbican Centre
1. The 'I Found the Barbican Centre' badge
Visitors have been getting lost here since we opened in 1982, and each generation of staff have found new ways of helping them find their way. This is badge is one of them.
I Found the Barbican Badge by Photography by Max ColsonBarbican Centre
Getting lost has much to recommend, though. It can be a way of seeing things you hadn’t bargained for.
Beech Gardens, Barbican by James DeavinBarbican Centre
Such as the wildflower meadows on the highwalk by Barbican Station, or the bits of Roman Wall incorporated into the Estate down past the Lakeside.
Digitising the Barbican Archive (2022)Barbican Centre
Working with Google Arts & Culture has enabled us to tell the story of how a 40-acre World War-II bombsite turned into a Grade II-listed Brutalist masterpiece – home to 4000 residents and host to 2 million visitors a year.
Barbican Redevelopment General Layout Roof Plan (1966) by Chamberlin, Powell & BonBarbican Centre
2. Barbican Roof Plan
There are more than 3,500 items in this digital archive, enough to get lost in all over again. This beautiful roof plan might help for starters.
The numbers refer to the phases in which Chamberlin Powell & Bon’s architectural vision was carried out. It’s the key to our plans collection, first saved and organised by an intrepid group of residents in the Estate.
Speed House: Sales Brochure - Page 1/6 by Corporation of London and Barbican Estate OfficeBarbican Centre
3. Speed House Booklet
There’s a sense of what draws people to live somewhere like the Barbican in the original sales brochures, like this one for Speed House.
The glass pyramid in this image never got built on the Lakeside after all. I can’t help wishing that it had – nearly twenty years before I. M. Pei’s at the Louvre!
Barbican Conservatory by Max ColsonBarbican Centre
But the idea survives in our famous Conservatory, a wonderful bit of improvisation to hide the fly tower which drops scenery down to our Theatre.
Moving in Trees into the Conservatory. (1980) by Peter BloomfieldBarbican Centre
4. Peter Bloomfield contact sheet
Like the rest of our collection of photographs by Peter Bloomfield, this contact sheet gives a sense of the creativity involved in the whole process...
...and the cast of the thousand engineers, carpenters, bricklayers, electricians, and here, crane operators that helped build this extraordinary place.
Barbican Diary - March 1982 Barbican Diary - March 1982 (1982) by Barbican CentreBarbican Centre
5. March 1982 Barbican Diary
But what happened in that theatre on our opening night in March 1982? Here’s the Barbican Guide to tell you, and it happens to be a graphic design classic by Ken Briggs.
Barbican Diary - March 1982 (1982) by Barbican CentreBarbican Centre
Contained within it, there’s the story of the people who now keep the building going: the countless brilliant artists who’ve performed here, the staff who keep the show on the road, and the audiences who keep coming back.
Barbican Lakeside Terrace by Max ColsonBarbican Centre
Discover the Barbican
Now you’ve found us - enjoy getting lost again!
