Barbican Living

A guide by Barretts Solicitors. If you're buying, use us. We really know the Barbican. Click here.
 

Construction of the Golden Lane Estate

When Great Arthur House was built, it was the tallest block of flats in London (even at 16 floors!). It would have looked quite revolutionary in its grey surroundings with its dramatically yellow curtain wall, rows of grey balconies, and its huge concrete canopy. The canopy is still strikingly effective. Pevsner describes it as “butterfly winged”. (The practical purpose was to conceal water tanks on the roof.)

The east-west terrace blocks which make up most of the buildings on the estate share a common structure. The structure of each building consists of massive brick-faced cross walls at either end and at intervals along the breadth of the building. These are the main load-bearing elements of the structure. Concrete slabs were then slung between, and the individual flats are built on them.

The flats between the cross walls then have opaque glass cladding below window level. Some buildings have red cladding and some have blue. The result is a strong colour effect for the building as a whole. This is often contrasted with white balcony walls on some floors.

Golden Lane Estate is a Modernist design. But it is interesting how many features of Victorian house design still survived in the new design. Most of the terrace blocks have ‘areas’ in front with stairs up to main front doors. The flats have balconies. Several terraces have a central segment with a projecting frontage for the flats as an architectural effect.

Between the blocks, a swimming pool, bowling green (now a tennis court) nursery school and community centre, exploiting the different levels left by the deep basements of bombed properties.  In the north-east court a curious walled circular enclosure, like a sheep fold.

One design oddity is the circular stone ‘thing’ near Basterfield House, which could be a ruined castle tower out of a Walter Scot novel. It serves no apparent purpose and is quite out of tune with the rest of the estate.

The last bit of the estate to be built was Crescent House which fronts Goswell Road. This was completed in 1962. It differs from what had gone before in a number of respects. It has shops below flats. Where the other terraces were box-shaped, Crescent House is more like a Barcelona design by Gaudi. It curves along the line of Goswell Road and even the roof line rises in a long curve towards the south. Instead of a flat front, the individual flats project at angles like boxes in a concert hall and have mosaic panels.