Barbican Living
Shops
"North of this sunken square is a semi-circle of shops below the crescent-shaped block of flats approached by steps in the form of an amphitheatre."
Chamberlin, Powell & Bon, Architects "Barbican Redevelopment" April 1959
Barbican was designed and built with its own shopping mall. You may recognise Frobisher Court as the crescent-shaped block between the Barbican Centre and Shakespeare Tower. But you won't recall any shops. You walk up steps from Beech Place into the empty amphitheatre half encircled by Frobisher Crescent. You may hurry across it as a short cut to the library or to M&S. Underneath is a semi-circular passage behind the Barbican Centre. The entire semicircle and then the covered pedestrian way past the bridge takes you from the back of Speed House to Shakespeare Tower. This underground pedestrian way was intended to be lined with shops full of bustling Barbican residents elbowing each other aside to get the best sales bargains. The only trouble was that no one wanted the shops. The space is now offices for the Barbican Arts Centre.
There are only three surviving shops in the Barbican. There is Crispins, the local "corner shop" next to Lauderdale Tower, which is probably feeling the pressure from Tesco Metro on the main road. Round the other, unvisited side of Lauderdale Tower is "Cissors Palace”. I don't know if you've noticed, but hairdressers almost uniquely among retailers seem to think an appalling pun is the only way to market their business. You don't see restaurants called "Meal On The Floss", or at least I hope not. (The original owner should at least have left it as “Scissors Palace”, but changing that to a non-word which looked a little bit like “Caesar’s” was pretty crass. ) There is a large music shop in the side of Cromwell Tower facing out into Silk Street, which presumably survives on trade from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Is there a crying and unfulfilled need for other shops? I rather doubt it. Crowder's Well and the absurdly named Xanxos (probably owned by the guy who thought up Cissors) were drinking establishments which dried up from lack of Barbican trade. Shops would probably suffer the same fate, because residents tend to go outside for their shopping and eating, and non-residents don't venture in unless they're on their way to the Barbican Centre for a concert. In fact, probably the only establishments which work in the Barbican are those which serve the visiting public in the Barbican Centre.
