Secret Barbican: visit these beautiful parts of the famous building
I’m not sure anyone can really consider themselves an ‘insider’ at the Barbican. It’s a giant, complex dream of a place, a vision of what a community and a life might be like with creativity at its heart. I’m just lucky enough to be one of the people looking after it for a bit.
And from that perspective it’s not unlike having a teenager. It’s entertaining and challenging, full of big ideas and hopes for the future, a big heart in a tough shell.
I’ve always adored the building, its odd corners and enormous aspects. Before I worked at the Barbican I had a sense of ‘never meet your hero’ – I worried that spending every day at a place I loved might break the spell.
But it’s been quite the opposite. Every day I see something that amazes me. At times it’s the details of the building – the ‘lantern’ at the top of the conservatory, where you can look out over the city from the height of the Theatre’s fly tower.
New parts of the Barbican to visit
Or the Foyer to the stalls of the Concert Hall and Theatre, where the floor is said to slope towards where the bar was originally placed (a lesson in hospitality). Or the lakeside, where the generosity of creating a true oasis in the City at a time when more rent-making properties must have been in demand, never ceases to impress me.
At others it is encountering at first hand the extraordinary creative work that goes on here. Bumping into someone in the queue for coffee that you realise – later – had entranced you on stage the night before. Or watching an artist work tirelessly on a new installation (an incredible example on our Sculpture Court right now).
Or walking backstage in the Concert Hall or Theatre and watching the incredible skill – and speed – of the technicians who create the magic that we often only experience subliminally. Or plunging right down to escape the world in one of our cinemas that sit side by side with tube lines and hidden tunnels, a reminder of how much we are knitted in to the City.
But even more often it is how the building is being used by its visitors. For dance practice, in front of our huge mirrors. Or writing last-minute reports, tucked away alongside the concert hall. Or meeting friends at the Martini Bar, which was meant to be a temporary installation to accompany a James Bond exhibition but is now a permanent (and much loved) fixture.
Many people know the Barbican as a place for people who love architecture – an icon of Brutalism and post-war city planning. But for me it is a place for people who love people. A place of encounter and shared experience, where different crowds gather and merge, and where people with every kind of skill and talent come together to create and experiment.
It’s an incredible thing to watch. Across a single day it can feel like passing through different seasons, as the atmosphere shifts depending on what events are on, what the light is like, or what sounds are escaping the various venues (or the practice rooms at Guildhall School of Music and Drama next door).
And what is most wonderful is that – even without paying a penny – it is a place that is open to everyone, even if it’s just for shelter on a wet day (NB the place even looks good in the rain).
So while all of this may make me sound like an insider, the most important thing is that no one should ever feel like an outsider.
Go to the official website