1971.1
Barbican brings a city to life
IN 1951 half a million people were working within the 'square mile' of the City of London by day; at night, bare- ly 5,000 actually lived there. The City that had, a century before, counted 128,000 full-time if uncomfortably overcrowded residents had become a 'City of cats and caretakers.'
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What a century of commercial building and spread of the working population into the suburbs in the wake of the railways had started, the Blitz nearly finished: at the end of World War II one tenth of the 'square mile' was devastated. Along the north- ern boundaries of the City, mostly in the ward of Cripplegate, stretched a 60-acre bombsite of blasted buildings; within the boundaries of the ward there were only 48 permanent resi- dents where 14,000 had lived a hun- dred years before.
War's devastation presented the
Far East BUILDER, January 1971 Page 33
CORPORATION OF LONDON
CHAMBERLIN, POWELL & BON
OVE ARUP & PARTNERS
G.H. BUCKLE & PARTNERS
DAVIS, BELFIELD & EVEREST
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City Corporation with an unparalleled opportunity to reverse the population drain. Rejecting the idea of developing the entire 63 acres (26 hectares) as office blocks - adding to the already severe congestion of the City and fur- ther encouraging the population decline the City proposed to use the greater part of the area to create a truly residential neighbourhood, in corporating a centre for education and the arts and sensibly integrated with both existing and new commercial life. When private developers showed little interest, the Corporation undertook to do the job itself.
clients
architects
structural engineers services engineers quantity surveyors
Because of the high cost of this pro- ject maximum use of land and building to a high residential density were essen- tial: at the same time it was necessary to produce a scheme that would pro- vide, along with dense housing, gen- erous open space; a high standard of amenity and convenience; a pleasant, yet exciting environment and a de- finite sense of neighbourhood and 'belonging'. These basic planning con- siderations were established in the early outline proposals for the scheme; although there have been changes in detail, the basic principles have re- mained the same.
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