To wonder if the Barbican is one of the ugliest places in London?

[leprachaun]

I lived there for a while, have friends there, and there is no doubt that it is wonderfully convenient. But am I the only one to think that it is hideously ugly, just like many other 1960s council blocks. However, now it has a Grade 2 listing - emperor's new clothes, or what?

I would be interested to know where you consider to be the ugliest and most beautiful parts of London.

I think many of them were beautiful in their way, but they were built by a method that cannot stand the test of time, sadly. Ironically that will add to their appeal and they will die young and go down in history as the Marilyn Monroes and the Jimi Hendrixes of the architecture world.

'Marilyn Monroes and the Jimi Hendrixes'

Possibly.
In certain, select refined groups. Similar to those that mourn the loss of the exquisite smallpox virus.

harsh Moth harsh!

Yeah, but I lived in a concrete monstrosity as a child in the late 60s. no gardens, not allowed to use the lifts if you were under 14, crumbling concrete, metal walls skimmed with crap.
If I thumped hard on the wall next to my bed, my friend on the next floor but one would thump back.
Every time I have to park in a seedy multistorey and walk down the stairs, the memories all flood back!

Thamesmead?

No, there were concrete tower blocks scattered all over the place, designed as 'towns and cities in the sky' by architects who never had to live in them.
Ugly on the outside, horrible to live in and thankfully ephemeral.
There had to be someone who loved them, I'm pleased to meet you.

My friend worked on the Kidbrook estate. That put the 'brutal' in post modern!

Moth, I totally agree with you!

Beauty stands the test of time - yes to Westminster Palace, but also the Tower of London and St. Paul's, as well as the London Eye.

Oh I m no lover of Thamesmead. The Barbican is only special because of its superb location and the fact that in the last 20 year it has attracted hipster pioneers. We can afford to stand back and admire the Barbican from a polite distance, because the hipsters have kept it alive and kicking.

Put the Barbican anywhere else and you have Thamesmead.

I love the Barbican and went there for its opening week back in the esrly 80's. Thought it was the dog's b..x. Yes, brutal, but that's the point surely?

I think the difference between the Barbican and other brutalist (if that's a word) architecture is that the Barbie was designed to be upmarket and other structures weren't, such as Trellick Tower, which was meant to be low-cost housing.

My pet hate is pastiche/ tudorbethan/ pseudo-cottagey nonsense.

I think architecture should be innovative and challenging, and not necessarily pleasing to the eye.

I like solid walls, lots of natural light and serious greenery/earth/trees.
I've seen some amazing modern architecture that would be a delight to have around and to live in. The Barbican is not one of them, despite the lovely location and the use of space inside the public buildings.

I used to work nearby and loved sitting and eating my lunch in the gardens. I used to dream about being able to afford one of the flats so that I could walk to work everyday.

There's something really cool about it - like I'm in a sci fi film. Lucky you living there!

Went to the Lowry exhibition years ago and was horrified by the Barbican. Got to sit next to a famous actor at lunch there though!

I love the barbican. I really like how the low rise blocks can be so transformed by overhanging flowers and greenery.

I like it.

It's not much worse than a lot of London TBH.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I used to work in the CU building, it is across the road from the Lloyds Building in London, my view through the floor to ceiling windows was the said Lloyds Building, when I first starting working I would agree that it was ugly, but over time seeing the light reflected off the metal and glass, and the colour change from grey to blue as the sun and seasons passed, that building, in my eyes at least, became beautiful - I think I spent too long watching it, after the CU building got blown up (showing my age now) and the Bank had to move offices I was given a desk well away from the window.

Robin Hood House in Poplar is 60s and much worse.

It's the building on the left as you enter the Blackwall Tunnel southbound. It featured in the last series of Luther. It's awful.

Haven't been to the Barbican for years now, but I used to love it in the 1980s.

The British Library, nominated upthread as someone's worst, is one of my all-time favourite buildings. I love the look of it from outside, on the piazza, and the inside is gorgeous, lots of interesting shapes and angles to look at , and so bright and airy. In its early days I used to like sitting on the readers' balcony on the top floor and watching the building going on at Kings Cross station. I haven't lived in London for about 12 years now, but whenever I visit I try to find time to pop in.

I like the Barbican and quite a lot of 60's stuff but agree that much of it is badly built and not always well thought out.
Anyone else like the Hoover Building along the Western Avenue?

Every time I go back to London a new hideous high rise has gone up. Not just the shard, but that one with 3 wind turbines in the structure and the one that has a bent over bit at the top that looks a bit like an electric shaver. Awful, and the lovely gherkin is all but engulfed.

I love the Barbican. Would very happily live there - it was my fantasy as a teenager and still is.

I hate green glass for residential. St George's wharf at Vauxhall is a prime example.

YABU only because you neglected to add "confusing" right up there with "ugly".

Hate the place.

Ooh, the only thing I like about the place was when my pearl necklace went kamikaze in the auditorium, the way the seats were built meant they only rolled a finite distance and I could find every one.

Oh, and the seven ladies used to be lovely until they removed them. Why, I don't know. the assholes

The British Library doesn't even have the excuse of being built in the 80s. It's late 90s. And hideous.