A stunning look inside the construction of Brutalist icon the Barbican centre

Seeing behind the scenes of any design process is fascinating, but when it’s the process of designing and building a piece that’s a living, breathing icon of modern design, it’s breathtaking. Brutalist, beautiful behemoth the Barbican is one of the most famous and divisive pieces of architecture in the capital, and a new book and website, Building the Brutal, presents never-before-seen images of the construction of the arts centre.

Taken by photographer Peter Bloomfield, the images trace the Barbican’s fabrication from 1971 to its completition in 1982. They’re a powerful monochrome relic to the literal and figurative building blocks that formed the space, and their crisp style and unpeopled composition is strangely humbling.

“I first went to the Barbican area towards the end of the war as a 13-year-old school boy, trying to imagine what sort of buildings had been destroyed by the bombing,” says Peter. "I could never imagine the arts centre that 35 years later would grow out of the ruins. I think this is a great piece of architecture; to have fitted all these features into such a crowded site needed a touch of genius.
 
“During my first visits to the site, I witnessed the building emerging from raw concrete to a beautifully textured finish with the help of a number of jackhammers, clouds of dust, and a lot of sweat. l feel very honoured to have been asked to photograph the Barbican in those early days, to be able to witness its birth.”

Building the Brutal is published by the Barbican in March and is available for pre-sale here.