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The Barbican

(arslan.io)
723 points farslan | 2 comments | 12 May 25 15:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.4s | source
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mjamil ◴[12 May 25 20:38 UTC] No.43967211[source]▶
It is utterly weird to me that so many commenters here appreciate the Barbican's aesthetics. To me, it is an ugly eyesore that's a legacy of the brutalist wave of the mid-20th century. I lived close to it (in Islington) for many months, and avoided walking through it to get to the City (where I worked).
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1. cbeach ◴[13 May 25 12:23 UTC] No.43972111[source]▶
Brutalism was a reactionary movement against ornate Victorian and Georgian architecture, which was seen as elitist and emblematic of the "property owning class"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture

> In the United Kingdom, brutalism was featured in the design of utilitarian, low-cost social housing influenced by socialist principles and soon spread to other regions around the world, while being echoed by similar styles like in Eastern Europe

So beware the vocal minority of English socialists that have a politically-tainted take on this architecture.

The rest of us agree with you. It's offensively ugly!

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2. BoxOfRain ◴[13 May 25 12:50 UTC] No.43972365[source]▶
To me it's a totalitarian style, it tells people 'I'm unashamedly ugly and I couldn't care any less what you think about that'. It goes out of its way to be imposing and institutional as though it's designed not for humans but for entirely fungible economic resources who in time will be burned up and discarded.

It's ironic the style is so strongly associated with socialism I think because it's much more 'dark Satanic mills' than 'England's green and pleasant land'.