The Barbican Centre and other complicated buildings you get lost in

[Whiskeyinthejar]

Does anyone else find the Barbican Centre absolutely infuriating? I can't remember the last time I was walking round and round in circles so much! I swear these unnecessarily complicated brutalist hellholes were built deliberately to get people lost.

I'll bring the trailmix and tinderbox

Excellent! I'll bring a hip flask and torches.

If we accidentally make our way into one of the millionaire flats we will have a party for all the lost souls.

I'm so glad it's not just me who gets lost in the Barbican. One year my colleagues bought me a membership as a Xmas gift and I never used it because I could literally never find anything in there. The library, the café, etc. Nada! I got anxiety each time I tried and felt horribly lost.

I ended up hanging out at the BFI Southbank way more and eventually bought myself a membership there instead.

I agree re Canary Wharf! I worked there for 4 months and figured out my route to the office, but anything else confused me glad to hear it’s not just me

I’ve never been to the Barbican- I’m intrigued now

Jings That’s hilarious

Most shopping centres confuse me - if it's a good idea to turn left I've usually turned right. I can spent ages in any large department store looking for the toilets or the way out.

What a lot of these confusing places have in common is levels that don't line up with the levels above and below. The added confusion with the Barbican is that most of the walkways curve or bend so you're not even sure which direction you're facing when you get to the end of a path, a compass would be helpful there. At least Canary Wharf is more or less straight lines, although it does help that I lived in the area during an intensive building phase so I had time to learn each new bit before the next bit was added.

I used to be smug about Ikea when I livec near the Wembley one. Easy-peasy. Then I went to the Southampton one. OMG.

I agree about Harrods. I also nominate the theatre our dance school uses for its shows - I chaperone backstage. Not only are there rooms and corridors everywhere, they can reconfigure big tranches of it by moving partitions, not much fun when you are looking for the side of the stage with a class of five year olds who are due on in a couple of minutes.

Bluewater!

Our local Ikea - it's mid-rebuild, everything's been moved around while they extend it and they've cut off all the "Ikea in and out like a ninja" routes so it takes fucking hours to get around. I used to be able to be in and out in sub 15 minutes.

House of Fraser in the Metrocentre.

Bank station and its eight bloody exits and five (?) lines.

I once ate in a really good cafe at the Barbican. Could never find it again.

I remember being at the Barbican, and being able to see the library - or possibly the CD shop - from where I was but not being able to get to it at all. Like one of those Esher drawings.
I was there last night but didn't do too badly although it took me a while to find the toilets.

I visited the newer Barbican Cinema on Saturday night, it's in a separate building to the main Center. Luckily we had loads of time as it was very difficult to find.

We asked a Barbican member of staff in the main Center who gave us the wrong instructions so walked in a large circle, in the dark. Most annoying if the staff don't know where it is.

A few signs on the street might help.

Then I visited Japan and had to navigate Shinjuku station God yes and without any visual aids - couldn't see outside, couldn't even see the walls for hoards of people and couldn't read any of the signs.

Harrods, definitely. Got lost in there with DD a few years back, successfully hid my increasing panic but NOT my elation when we found ourselves back in the food hall.

Local House of Fraser. There’s a reason they’re in trouble.

My London office, which isn’t particularly complex, but has the most convoluted routes for getting to the loos from practically anywhere. I end up ushering visitors to the loos on the way in and out, ‘just in case’, like small children.

I like getting lost in museums and art galleries though, as I’m almost always alone and not in a hurry. I once went in the main entrance of Tate Britain, bimbled around a bit, finally popped out of a door about quarter of a mile down the road.

Harrods! I always get lost in there.

My local house of Fraser. When they close it they’re going to fund people in there who went in 20 years ago and haven’t made it out again.

Yes to Birmingham new street. Usually ok as long as I don’t want to lave the station.

When I was at uni there was a building, which was very attractive, but had actually been designed to be built in two separate phases. So the part there was actually only half a building.

What this meant practically was that to get from room 1.11 on the 1st floor, to room 1.12 also on the first floor you would have to walk the length of the building, go down stairs, walk back to the other end of the building and go up the stairs to the second floor, walk half way along a corridor and then through a door marked fire exit only, to get the stairs back down to the first floor.

because some of the corridors and stairwells wouldn't be built until the second phase....

I once attended a university that has a building where you practically need a map to get to a class. Seriously.

Apparently it was designed and built by three separate architects. The first one started the building and was fired. The second picked up where the first had left off and then his company declared bankruptcy. The third finished the building.

I've never been inside the building myself, but I've been told there are stairways that lead to brick walls and classrooms that can only be accessed by going into the closet of someone's private office.

If I were teaching a class there, I would be very thankful that we now have electronic means of communication. Probably one of the first messages I would put in the online student forum would be "Instructions for how to Access and Find the Classroom".

I have a pretty decent sense of geography and can navigate independently using landmarks to help me.
But whenever I’m navigating around unfamiliar surroundings and places I typically rely on a map. Or I ask for directions from someone who works there too.
I’ve found that it helps me find my way around the building.

I remember going to The Harlequin shopping centre in Watford about 20 years ago with my DM and DD. My over riding memory of the trip was spending about 20 minutes trying to find an exit door back into the high street!

Queens medical center Nottingham is the most bewildering hosp to navigate.
I think it is a government initiative to tackle obesity as you have to walk miles because you can't get a space anywhere near the building and then can spend whole days roaming the corridors without seeing another soul. One of these days I will come across a dry dusty skeleton ,.a long lost patient no doubt.

The staff who work there must be v fit or have a better internal compass than me !

I thought that all Ikeas had the same layout and yellow-brick-road?! I've been to the ones near Wembley and Croydon - a few times for each - and thought their layout was identical? Perhaps I was wrong?! Perhaps, once you get in there, you're under the influence of something strange?!

LOL at AprilMom who would use a map or ask someone for directions, and who clearly has never been to the Barbican. Or been to Malaysia either, where maps are illegal (because of the communist threat, that no longer exists) and where the local will give you directions whether they know the way or not because it would be rude to say 'no' to someone.

Bless you, April. You clearly haven't been anywhere very complicated!!

Just remembered a huge row that DP and I had in the Croydon Ikea - about him not 'following the yellow-brick-road'. Although perhaps that story is best told on the current 'arguments thread'?