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Comment by Nursie

7 hours ago

The Barbican is a standout exception though. It always comes up in these discussion, and I think it's because in contrast to most other buildings, it was really thought through. The fact is that like in other walks of life, when talent meets opportunity then occasionally great things can happen. But that sort of outlier talent isn't evident in most architecture.

As such the vast majority of the Barbican's disparate cohort of brutalist concrete buildings in the UK were not built for humans, they were built for middling architects who were never going to have to suffer living in them. They need to be razed to the ground and thankfully many/most are going that way.

Stark, grey-brown, crumbling, water-stained monstrosities that just add to the feeling of misery in a country which is already stark, grey-brown, crumbling and water stained in so many other ways.