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The Barbican

(arslan.io)
728 points farslan | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.197s | source
1. cbeach ◴[] No.43972055[source]
Even though it serves as expensive housing for private purchase, it still manages to exude Soviet central-planned estate vibes.

Walking around this imposing concrete structure, you feel its soullessness and brutalism. They made attempts to introduce greenery (like the temperate greenhouse area), but in the 21st century those areas are tired, poorly maintained and generally devoid of any visitors. The glass is misty or greening. The water features are stagnant. The concrete has aged poorly, with cracking and visible degradation.

London is full of beautiful Victorian and Georgian architecture, so brutalist concrete buildings look cringeworthy by comparison.. but they do seem to tickle the fancy of the socialist intelligentia, who love to proclaim how clever it all is - clever in a way that the common non-socialist folk simply wouldn't understand.