Forty Years On!
It is almost forty years since C and myself moved into the Barbican with our young family.
Now they are building the Heron next door.
The Heron Peeks Above the Barbican
The Barbican and its three iconic towers were very much of the 1960s, just as the Heron is of today. The Barbican with its sculptured concrete is pretty much unique, but from what I’ve read and seen, the Heron will be very modern and have a very much lower carbon footprint.
All of the towers in the Barbican will share one thing with the Heron and that is superb views. But the view from the Heron won’t have the view we did of Whitbread‘s working brewery complete with its dray horses, that in the 1970s still performed some of the local deliveries in the city.
But living in the Barbican was a pleasureable experience in the 1970s and we all liked it. I still felt good as I went back to the complex to visit the library to do some research for a book.
I hope living in the Heron will be just as pleasureable. But it will probably not have the eclectic mix of people that the Barbican had when it opened. I suspect now the Barbican has changed, what with buy-to-let, second homes in the country and the changes brought by the credit crunch.
The Anonymous Widower 
My geography of London is bad, so this may be a silly question. When you looked out from the Barbican did you every see a huge crane with the name of John Wright and Sons on it, may also have said “Timber Merchants” or “Veneer Merchants” on it? If so, you dont happen to have a photo do you?
Comment by liz | May 11, 2011 |