The Barbican Complex, architecture and nature, London

The Barbican, London. Text by landscapelover

Barbican is an old word meaning fortification. It is a perfect name for this monumental,
modernist development in the heart of London. Covering fifteen hectares, and having 
taken twenty years to construct, the Barbican consists of more than two thousand 
high-rise and low-rise apartments with associated cultural and recreational facilities.

It was designed as a series of vast geometric blocks, all finished in the same hammered 

concrete, creating a distinctive texture and striking sense of coherence throughout the site. 

At forty-three storeys, its three high-rise towers were for a time the tallest residential 

blocks in Europe. But the Barbican is not simply concrete: its buildings are geometrically

arranged around open squares and gardens of lawns, trees, flowers, canals, massed fountains and pools.

Hidden away are roof terraces, allotments, even a wild garden. Accessible only on foot, 
architecture and landscape are linked together by raised walks, steps and pedestrian 
bridges. Cars and parking have been relegated to the concealed street level, with the 
Underground [London metro] in tunnels further below.

The Barbican was designed in the late 1950s to revive the largely deserted Cripplegate 
area of the capital that had been bombed to dereliction during the Second World War.

Despite pressure to provide commercial facilities, the City of London Corporation—

the public body responsible for this square mile of the city—decided on a largely 

residential development, wanting to attract a stable population of young professionals working in the nearby financial and cultural institutions.

It was thus never intended as social housing, but to some the Barbican feels like a 

modernist rendering of England’s early twentieth century Garden City Movement, 

which sought to create utopian communities for the working classes by balancing

 carefully placed housing with allotments and forests, and combining agriculture 

and industry, nature and the man-made, all designed on a human scale.

More obvious as an influence on the Barbican is Le Corbusier’s mid-century vision 
of high-rise developments that replaced urban slums with large, light-filled 
apartments situated in wide green plazas, integrated with public transport, 
shops, communal gardens and cultural resources.

The purpose and design of the Barbican was dramatic and brave. Yet its reputation was sullied by the general unfashionableness of modernist design and, more practically, by the impossibility for visitors of finding the major Arts Centre in its midst. 

Mediterranean garden hotel in winter

During past holidays and when visiting part of the family in the South of Spain I was
 invited to this wonderful place called Casa de los Bates for an afternoon tea. It was 
built in the nineteenth century as an estate and with Italian inspiration, it was meant 
to be the home for a family.

The hotel is located in a hill overlooking the Mediterranean tropical coast of Granada, 

and has been restored to maintain its origins.  Time past and the building and gardens 

were transformed into a boutique rural hotel, and is run by some members of my 

in-law family, which were very happy to show us around. 

The gardens surrounding the house show also the moorish influence both in their 

design and use of plants and trees to organize the different sections. Fountains and 

water features help creating relaxing cool areas, as a refuge in hot summer days. 

It was a very mild weather on the first day of the new year, so we had an afternoon 
tea and pastries seating by the front porch area.

A Mediterranean hotel & gardens

La Reserva Rotana is a rural boutique hotel in Majorca.  the estate dates back almost 

300 hundred years, and some 30 years ago was converted into a hotel.  Many parts of 

the estate are still working as a farm, with vineyards producing wines to be served in 

the restaurant.  The resort manages to preserve the style of the authentic Majorcan 

rural landscape and the gardens are kept to harmonize with the surroundings.