The Barbican Centre (1980-02-16/1980-02-16) by Peter BloomfieldBarbican Centre
The Barbican Centre and Barbican Estate were built on an area of London which was flattened during the bombing of London during World War II. The history goes back far further than that, though, with Roman walls, and a medieval church which survived the fire of London in 1666.
Layout of Barbican Redevelopment from CPB Plan XXVIIBarbican Centre
Barbican Redevelopment Plan
This map from our Plans collection shows the architects and engineers taking stock of what they had to build on top of. It shows the outline of our site against the map of existing London streets.
Barbican Redevelopment Plan
Trainlines are also visible running through the site.
Barbican Redevelopment Plan
Some of these streets survive in different forms on our site.
This note shows a calculation for the area our site covers.
Barbican Redevelopment Plan
Beech Street now divides Cinemas 2 & 3 and the Exhibition Halls from the main body of the Arts Centre and Estate, running under a tunnel under the walkways at podium level.
Barbican Redevelopment Plan
The architects’ original plan was that the roads be left to cars, with the pedestrians taking to the ‘streets in the sky’ walkways. In practice, people have tended to walk about at ground level.
Barbican Regained
Watch this film, Barbican Regained, digitised by the London Metropolitan Archives, to see the bomb site as it was.
