Barbican unveils plans for massive new concert space

There aren’t many more enjoyable spaces to while away a day or night in London than the Barbican. The brutalist beauty spot is inarguably one of the best things about life in the capital and for fans of music, the best just got better.

Yesterday (January 21) the Barbican revealed plans for a £288 million complex that’ll also be used by the London Symphony Orchestra and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and will be known as the London Centre for Music.

Designed by interdisciplinary design studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the London Centre for Music – which will be dominated, from what we’ve seen, by a pyramidal structure which reminds us somewhat of Tate Modern’s similarly angular Blavatnik building – is the in-demand practice’s latest high-profile project.

If you’ve been lucky enough to spend time in Manhattan, you’ll likely have burnt off a dollar slice or two on the High Line, Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s elevated park-cum-walkway which stretches from the Meatpacking District to the Hudson Rail Yards. The design practice is also currently working on a new outpost of the Victoria & Albert Museum, which will reside within the boundaries of east London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

The aforementioned tower – another high and mighty addition to the city’s ever-changing landscape – will be plonked where the Museum of London currently resides. Dezeen reports that the Diller Scofidio + Renfro project will be “a significant waypoint” on what is being referred to as a new “culture mile” for the capital, set to start at Tate Modern and end just past the Barbican’s sprawling estate.