Taking The Barbican beyond concrete
I’ve always had an interest in the architecture of tower blocks; I even wrote my dissertation on high-rise housing. So when we expanded into our London Showroom Studio, it’s safe to say I was excited to discover we’re just around the corner from The Barbican.
The Barbican has always stood out to me as a real design icon. Its bold Brutalist architecture and geometric forms have earned it Grade II listed status, and it’s easy to see why it continues to inspire designers today.
One of the latest examples is MADE.com‘s collaboration with The Barbican: a 26-piece interior collection featuring everything from dining tables to salt and pepper shakers. It takes the estate’s distinctive design language and gives it a fresh, modern twist. The collection has all the nostalgia of a retro interior while still feeling completely at home in a contemporary space.
It got me thinking about what my own version of the collection might look like using ALTO.
The first piece had to be a bespoke ALTO Grid. Taking inspiration from the earthy colours running throughout MADE.com’s collection, I paired walnut wood with Juniper, Shell and Dulse to create something warm, graphic and textured. The softer textures and colour palette balance out The Barbican’s raw concrete without taking away from what makes it so distinctive.
I’d also include a piece of artwork I recently designed for our London office, exploring The Barbican’s floor plan through a puzzle of ALTO pieces. It’s a slightly different take on the colour palette, but it feels like a natural addition to the collection and another way of celebrating the building’s distinctive geometry.
And then, of course, there had to be something a little more playful.
Inspired by The Barbican Conservatory and its recent giveaway of monstera cuttings ahead of its 2030 renovation, I couldn’t resist creating an ALTO monstera plant. It’s a small nod to one of my favourite parts of The Barbican, and proof that design inspired by architecture doesn’t always have to be taken too seriously.
Seeing a collection inspired by The Barbican made me want to look at it through an ALTO lens. It’s been a fun little design exercise, and proof that inspiration can come from places you’ve walked past a hundred times. The Barbican is full of details that still feel as relevant now as they did when it was first built.