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The Barbican

(arslan.io)
723 points farslan | 5 comments | 12 May 25 15:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.711s | source
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tetris11 ◴[12 May 25 16:26 UTC] No.43964795[source]▶
When people point to examples of bad brutalist architecture, I point them to the Barbican as a beautiful counter-example.
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1. rwmj ◴[12 May 25 16:36 UTC] No.43964903[source]▶
And the Brunswick Centre (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunswick_Centre) which is not too far away. Having said that the exceptions don't make the rule.
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2. ninalanyon ◴[12 May 25 16:55 UTC] No.43965096[source]▶
Exceptions prove the rule. Prove means test.
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3. ddalex ◴[12 May 25 17:19 UTC] No.43965373[source]▶
The Brunswick Centre is one of my favourite parts of central London
4. notahacker ◴[12 May 25 18:45 UTC] No.43966260[source]▶
Centre Point and it's lesser known baby brother One Kemble Street are pretty attractive buildings too though the former has the characteristic brutalist issue of not being great at street level. Depending on where you approach it from, the Barbican can have that issue too...
5. gwern ◴[12 May 25 19:03 UTC] No.43966454[source]▶
Note that he did not use the expression you are criticizing him for misusing.

The rule is the rule, and exceptions are the exception. Exceptions do not make the rule, by definition, so if your only defense of Brutalism is to say 'look at this one exception out of the tens of thousands that got built, which doesn't suck!', then you have conceded the point about Brutalism sucking.