“Either you really get the bug and you want to be here or you think ‘Why the hell did I ever come to live here in the first place?’ and you get out,” says an elderly resident of London’s Barbican Estate. She has been living in the complex, a monument to Brutalist architecture, for 39 years.
This short documentary, Barbican: Urban Poetry, by London-based filmmaker Joe Gilbert is about the Barbican Estate, home to both a residential complex and a performing arts centre hosting concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions.
The term “brutalist” was coined by Le Corbusier to describe his choice of material: raw concrete (“béton brut” in French).
The Barbican, an arcehtypal example of the movement that flourished from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, was part of the mission to transform an area of London left devastated by bombing during the Second World War.
“To some extent it was utopian, I suppose, because don’t forget that this was just after the war. The idea that something could be started afresh was terribly important to older people and certainly young people,” says the woman interviewed in this film.
In stark black and white videography, this short documentary shows off the Barbican’s architectural design from different angles, heights and locations.
“There’s certainly some beautiful stuff: the bridge, the water underneath that. To me it’s like you’re coming across a lost empire or something. It’s really quite special,” says another resident.
