Take a look inside the Barbican’s boiler room before the Big Upgrade

When the Barbican Art Centre was being constructed in the late 1970s, a boiler room was needed to provide all the mechanicals for the building, but soon, a lot of that 40+ year old equipment is to be stripped out.

Down several flights of stairs, through an unmarked door into a staff corridor, you come to a locked door that takes you into the beating heart of the Barbican — a huge boiler room.

Barring some upgrades as needed, most of the equipment down here dates back to when the art centre was built. However, over the next decade or so, as part of the Barbican Renewal project, much of this will be replaced with modern, much more efficient equipment. The modern kit will not only be cheaper to operate but also much more environmentally friendly, as it will consume less electricity to heat and cool the building above.

However, at the moment, it’s a strange world of large pipes weaving their way around the basement, control panels out of a steampunk exhibition, and vast silver water tanks that look uncannily like a 1950s spaceship lying on its side.

I am not going to try to explain what does what, so just enjoy a few photos of this rarely seen space.

So, everytime you visit the Barbican, this is the room that keeps the cinema cool, provides the hydraulics for the theatre and keeps the lobby areas warm.

In the meantime, the Barbican renewal project exhibition is open until Sunday 16th February.

There will also be drop-in sessions to chat to the architects:

  • Wed 5 Feb 3.30pm – 6.30pm
  • Sun 9 Feb 2pm – 5pm
  • Tue 11 Feb 10am – 1pm
  • Thu 13 Feb 4.30pm – 7.30pm