As the summer begins to fade, many people are exploring whether their conservatories are still fit for purpose and if they might need some repairs or refurbishment work before their purpose changes over the colder winter months.
Even if they are not used to store plants and garden furniture indoors, conservatories are increasingly designed to be perfect for year-round applications, and this extra use can sometimes mean some additional work is needed to keep them looking fresh.
This is true even for some of the biggest and most ambitious conservatories in Great Britain.
The Barbican Conservatory, for example, announced that it would be undergoing a significant refurbishment that will make it more accessible and ensure it can remain open more often than has recently been the case.
This news has stoked a remarkable amount of excitement for people interested in secret gardens and the ubiquitous architecture of the Barbican itself, but it also reflects the profound impact one of the UK’s most unique conservatories has had far beyond London itself.
The Concrete Jungle
Like many architectural revolutions, the Barbican Conservatory divided opinion the moment it was conceived, but as with other ambitious designs, age has turned what was originally overtly radical and idiosyncratic into something influential and uniquely beloved.
The Barbican Conservatory was part of a long and similarly controversial Barbican Estate in central London, which was constructed between 1965 and 1976 and featured a similarly unique arts centre at its centre.
It was designed as a concrete ziggurat in keeping with the optimistic, forward-thinking brutalist style popular in its day.
The conservatory was the last major construction project on the Barbican Centre itself, being built around the famous fly tower of the theatre.
The idea was that the best way to hide one of the tallest buildings on the complex was to surround it with tropical plants and a glass surround.
The concept was greeted with the same level of suspicion as the rest of the Barbican Complex, with fears that the greenery would only serve to accentuate the stylistic extremes of a building that was the apotheosis of an architectural movement that had become deeply unfashionable.
Instead, it proved to be a whole new kind of conservatory.
A New Type Of Conservatory
Up until the Barbican, most botanical gardens aimed to retain the traditional style of the Victorian golden age, evoking the glasshouse styles of exemplars such as the Palm House at Kew Gardens.
These types of conservatories are undoubtedly beautiful, but because the priority is the plants themselves, the floor plans tend to be variants on a theme that sticks to what is known to work and creates a strange form of artificial nature.
By contrast, the Barbican does the opposite; as the fly tower’s staggered design could not be altered or amended, the vast line of tropical trees, plants and water features containing a vast menagerie of aquatic wildlife,
The resulting look is a type of reclaimed beauty; amidst a concrete jungle of complex skyways, balconies and multi-tiered entrances that historically was a nightmare to navigate, the conservatory was a literal jungle that grew amidst concrete bridges and tiered floors.
It ironically looked more natural and more a part of the entire Barbican project than many botanical conservatories that intended a more natural look at the time could achieve.
The comparison was made not to any other of the great conservatories found in London or the most prestigious English country houses but to depictions of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which similarly used a multi-layered structure to provide a beautiful, lush connection between architecture and nature.
How Influential Was The Barbican Conservatory?
The success of the Barbican and how it has endured despite being conceptually a somewhat inelegant fix has proven the value of a well-designed conservatory for improving the overall design and structure of a home.
At the time the Barbican was being made, the dominant form of conservatory in the home was the somewhat artificial sunroom.
They tended to be relatively small, predominantly clad in uPVC and not designed to harmonise with the building around it. They offered more space but often at the expense of practicality and longevity.
It would take years for this to change and for conservatories to take an approach more inspired by the Barbican; rather than add an extension without considering the home or practicality, modern conservatories are designed to marry modern conveniences with traditional aesthetics.
It remains to be seen what the regeneration project for the Barbican Conservatory will look like, but it is likely that it will continue to inspire for generations to come.