The People Who Built the Barbican

This collection of colour photographs from our Archive show the Barbican during construction.

The photographs were passed along to the Archive and we don't know who is in them or who took them.

We have now been able to digitise the collection for the first time.

The photographs are of the construction of the arts centre, which was carried out by Laing.

You can see the residential Estate in the background had already been finished. The first flats opened in 1969, 12 years before the arts centre was completed.

Here is a view across the City, presumably taken from the top of the site. You can see the dome of St Paul's in the background.

The photos capture the people who worked on the Barbican, as well as the building work itself. Scroll through to see a selection:

Do you recognise someone featured in these photos? Get in touch at archives@barbican.org.uk

Our friends at the Bishopsgate Institute Special Collections & Archives hold a collection of oral histories recorded with the people who built the Barbican.