Barbican seeks wayfinding designers to improve its baffling layout
The Barbican Art Centre’s famously awkward layout may be easier to find your way around as they’ve launched a design competition to improve the wayfinding signage around the estate.
The navigation improvements project is part of a longer-term redevelopment of the arts centre to upgrade its facilities, for which the City of London recently awarded £191 million.
Since its opening in 1982, the Barbican’s multi-layered design has presented ongoing challenges for wayfinding and navigation. Despite multiple interventions over the decades that made very real improvements, visitors still frequently highlight wayfinding as a source of confusion, and it was the most prominent issue raised in an early public consultation for the Renewal programme.
Over the next five years, phase one of the Barbican Renewal programme will deliver significant improvements across the Barbican Centre, in particular in the free public spaces of the lakeside, foyers and conservatory. The Barbican said that the wayfinding project will play a major role in enhancing the Centre’s functionality and reinforcing its identity as a global hub for the arts.
Philippa Simpson, Director of Buildings and Renewal, says; “The Barbican is a world-renowned multi-arts centre, an icon of Brutalist architecture but it’s equally famous for being difficult to navigate, particularly for new visitors. This is a unique opportunity to tackle one of London’s trickiest design challenges and bring clarity to this cultural landmark. The Renewal programme will not only address functionality of the Barbican’s buildings but will clarify and celebrate the Barbican’s identity and purpose through exceptional design.”
Full contract details are available on the City of London’s procurement portal here.
Subject to planning permission, construction work will begin in 2027, and this first phase will be completed in time for the Barbican’s 50th anniversary in 2032.
The City of London is the Barbican Centre’s founder and principal funder.
Well, repainting the yellow line would be a start, its nearly gone in many places.
“Follow, follow the yellow brick road”
What is it with people who have no sense of direction or can’t follow signs?
Most people have a poor sense of direction and will be unable to follow signs if they don’t reappear every time there’s a choice to make.
I’ve always found it quite straighr forward.
Thats what you get when you leave desinging a building to architects. An award winning construction that is of no help to people. Happened all the time in the “Concrete Era”. Fortunately most of them are now either landfill or road foundations
I suppose a moderate sized explosion is out of the question?
Ok, in that case it’s not rocket science… Plenty of signage, plenty of ‘You are HERE’ plans and an abundance of lines painted on the ground.
Trying to navigate the Barbican is part of it’s charm