Barbican Renewal:

Vision

A Grade II listed Brutalist icon, the Barbican is one of the UK's architectural treasures.

Unlike anything London had ever seen, designing and developing the Barbican Centre was part of a visionary plan from architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon to radically transform how we experience buildings and cities.

Today, the Barbican Centre attracts almost 2 million visitors a year, as well as thousands of artists and creatives, and the wider Barbican complex is home to a community of around 4,000 residents.

However, many of the Barbican Centre's key building systems are over 40 years old and require an urgent programme of replacement and upgrade. 

Renewing the building's infrastructure is a chance to celebrate the Barbican's vision and design heritage, while responding to the creative opportunities and challenges of the future. The project will enable the Barbican to share more of our spaces with more people and enhance the Centre's status as a leading destination for art, education and enterprise.

Through our Renewal Programme, we will:

· Repair the building to ensure it can continue to function long into the future.

· Better connect the Barbican as a place for everyone.

· Bring underused spaces into new creative use - without adding an extra square metre of development.

· Respond to the climate emergency and put sustainability at the heart of our plans.

Download original brief

Get Involved

In April 2022, the design team that will work with us on the Renewal Project was announced. This team is led by architects Allies and Morrison and Asif Khan Studio, working alongside engineering and sustainability consultancy Buro Happold; heritage experts Alan Baxter Ltd; theatre, acoustic, and digital consultancy Charcoalblue; landscape architects Hood Design Studio, and lighting design agency les éclaireurs. 

Since April 2022, the design team has been developing the overall vision for the project. As part of this work, in September 2022 we launched a public survey to understand people's experience of the Barbican and their ideas for how we could improve the building for the future. The survey received well over 700 responses.

Alongside the survey and the many conversations we have been having with Barbican teams and building users, we held two collaborative workshops at the Barbican Centre in November 2022, which involved local residents, community organisations and artists.

Through these consultation sessions and survey responses, we've heard lots of helpful thoughts and perspectives for the Barbican Renewal project. Read an executive summary of our initial learnings (PDF download).

Thank you to everyone who has got involved so far. We will now analyse all feedback, progress the early plans and submit an initial business case to the City of London Corporation. We will also report back on our final findings once the survey has concluded and we have finished reviewing all the responses we've received.

Subject to the City of London Corporation's approval of the business case, we will then return for further public consultation in 2023 as design work is developed.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about the project, you can email us at [email protected].