See how they lived before and how they live now

Card

Before the pandemic, the family of Robert and Christina Elms lived in a large Georgian-style mansion on a quiet, wide street planted with poplars and maples. They have lived here for almost 26 years and did not even think about moving, but the pandemic “seclusion” radically changed their lives. Robert has always had a dream to live in the Barbican, a modernist quarter that is considered a monument of brutalist architecture.

Card

“I’ve always liked brutalism,” he says. — I have always admired the Barbican — this citadel of modernism in the heart of London, its strict architectural purity and utopian ideas of communal housing of the 1970s. With its own concert hall, theaters, galleries, music school, cinemas, library and restaurants, it is a kind of holiday camp for design lovers. As my son said, “this would be the Soviet Union if they had succeeded.””

The Barbican was built by Chamberlin, Powell & Bon and is considered the largest monument of modernism in London.

Photo

wikipedia.org

The residential complex consists of 13 houses and three 42-storey towers. There is a school for girls, a music school and even its own greenhouse.

Photo

wikipedia.org

The Barbican was built by modernist architects Chamberlin, Powell & Bon as an experiment in luxury housing in high-density cities — so that citizens could walk from their ultramodern apartments directly to the office. This is a kind of mini-city without cars, with labyrinths of paths, crossings, ramps and bridges interspersed with lawns and ponds.

1/3

Photo:

wikipedia.org

“I’ve often thought that the Barbican would be a great place for my wife and me to spend the next stage of our lives; everything we need is just a few minutes away by elevator, and St. Bart’s Hospital is around the corner. But convincing everyone, especially myself, that it was time to say goodbye to our beloved home was not easy.”

Card

The pandemic helped. When everyone fled from the “plague” metropolis to nature, Robert and Christina realized that their dreams could not be postponed any longer — and decided to exchange their luxurious Georgian mansion for a tiny concrete box in the Barbican.

“The hardest thing was to tell our two 20-year—old children that their beloved house in which they were born — with shutters, wrought—iron railings and wisteria at the porch – would no longer belong to them,” says Robert. — There wouldn’t be enough space for the four of us in the new apartment. Moreover, our daughter was studying abroad at that time and would not even be able to come to London to say goodbye to her childhood home. It was all very difficult. But no matter what, we firmly knew that the time for change had come.”

Card

We were also lucky with the fact that housing prices in the “concrete boxes” of the Barbican fell sharply during the pandemic — everyone, on the contrary, sought to escape from the city to the suburbs. Therefore, many attractive offers have appeared on the market. There are more than 2000 apartments of various types in the Barbican, most of them are located in low buildings. But the most iconic part of the residential complex are, of course, three towers — concrete giants towering over the block. Completed in the mid-1970s, they were considered the tallest in Europe at that time. It was there that Robert was looking for an apartment — and the higher, the better.

As a result, they found a small, “murdered”, but nice apartment on the 34th floor — with stunning views of the Thames, the Ferris Wheel and the majestic dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. But one thing: a global repair was required, which is still ongoing. Now Robert and Kristina live in a rented apartment, where they moved with all their belongings and their goldfish. Some of the things were sold, some were attached to charitable organizations — after all, it was simply impossible to move everything that had been acquired for more than a quarter of a century into a tiny apartment.

Card

“It was a little scary to watch the apartment we had just bought turn into ruins, but it was impossible to repair without it,” says Robert. — I had to break everything down from the beginning to rebuild it. This place was brilliantly designed, but built in the 1970s, so there was no room for large modern beds, there were not enough sockets, there was little storage space. We strive to preserve the spirit of this place, but at the same time make it livable in the XXI century.”

Card

Original content from the site