The Barbican Centre is the largest multi-arts centre in Europe, featuring art, film, music, theatre, dance and education all under one roof and under one creative direction.

The Centre comprises the 1,949 seat Barbican Hall, the 1,166-seat Barbican Theatre, the 200-seat Pit theatre, 3 cinemas, the 1Barbican Art Gallery, a 2nd gallery; The Curve, foyers and public spaces, the Lakeside Terrace, a roof-top tropical conservatory, 7 conference suites, 2 trade exhibition halls, private function rooms and the 3 restaurants; Searcy’s, Waterside Café and Balcony Bistro.

The idea of the centre was born in the 1960s, when new architectural styles were emerging, including the ‘brutalism’ that characterises the entire Barbican complex. The construction did not begin until 1971. The final cost of the build was £500 million in today's money, a gift from the Corporation of London to the people of Britain. The acoustics in the main hall are fantastic and the kitsch 70s interiors have become popular over time, after being initially reviled.


Microcosm of London
Peter Ackroyd, Novelist, biographer and poet.

The Barbican has a history almost as old as London itself. It was first built by the Roman invaders to protect what was for them a new settlement by the river. Within, in the area of the city just south of the Barbican, lived Martin Frobisher, Lancelot Andrews and Thomas More. The area of Cripplegate beyond the wall, was in comparison considered to be insalubrious and incommodious. In the 16th century it became the natural home for thieves and receivers of stolen goods. It was a microcosm of Elizabethan ‘low life’ and became the haven for nonconformists of every description. It was also a home for actors. William Shakespeare lived here at the corner of Monkwell Street and Silver Street. Ben Johnson lived for a period in the Parish of St. Giles. Grub Street was perhaps the most famous of the Barbican streets, and it has remained in the popular imagination ever since it was described by Samuel Johnson as ‘much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries and temporary poems.

The Barbican, a populous and ramshackle area, was bound to be a victim of all epidemic disorders that swept across the city. The Great Plague killed some 8,000 out of a population of 11,000 and the Great Fire swept as far north as Smithfield. It slowly grew more ruinous and dilapidated and then in the 20th century was destroyed by German bombs in the Second World War.

By 1951 only 58 people lived in the entire ward. Only in 1952 did plans for redevelopment begin. So the Barbican has been a neighbourhood of actors and of writers as well as the home of vice, disease and fire. It has been an asylum for refugees and outcasts. It has, in a word, been London.

Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS.

Barbican or Moorgate Tube.

Call:    020 7638 4141