Out of the Ruins

The blitz raid of Sunday, Dec. 29, 1940, was one of the worst. "The weight of the attack," wrote Sir Winston Churchill later, "centered upon the City of London itself. It was an incendiary classic. Nearly 1,500 fires had to be fought. Eight Wren churches were destroyed or damaged. The Guildhall was smitten by fire and blast, and St. Paul's Cathedral was only saved by heroic exertions. A void of ruin at the very center of the British world gapes upon us to this day." But for all its grim destruction, the "incendiary classic" may yet have some compensations.

The commercial heart of the British Empire, the physical City of London is a square mile of tangled alleyways originally built for handcarts and daily clogged with motorcar traffic. When the bombs fell, they at least opened spaces that had not seen the sun for centuries. After the war, Londoners began to hope that what Sir Christopher Wren was never able to do for the City after the Great Fire of 1666, a modern architect might do. But the new buildings that arose haphazardly were the same old "Bankers' Georgian," and each day 350,000 businessmen, clerks and stevedores still swarmed into the City and then poured out again each evening to leave a lonely nighttime population of only 5,000. Finally, the only area where London could still take profitable advantage of the Nazi demolition was 35 acres of ruins flanking Barbican Street, where Milton once lived.

In 1956 the Ministry of Housing at last decided that Barbican should be turned into an oasis of apartment buildings, shops, schools and "open spaces." A year later the City Corporation set up a 16-man Barbican committee headed by a forward-looking city councilor named Eric Wilkins, 57. A team of young architects was hired to draw up a master plan for a combined residential, business and cultural center, largely for middle-class people who work in the City. Last week Londoners were trooping into Guildhall to view $56 million worth of possible things to come:

P: A "ground pattern" of roads and walks, based on a system of "segregated traffic" in which pedestrians and shoppers will go about their business on a "podium" 20 ft. above all buses and cars.

P: Three 37-story apartment houses of elaborate balconies and grillwork that will house the bulk of the center's 6,000 resident families and will soar higher than any other apartments now in London.

P: A 135-room hotel, hostels and residence halls for students, a sports center leading onto a vast open-air garden.

P: A great square built around the ruins of the St. Giles Church tower. A cultural center, built around a new Guildhall School of Music and Drama, housing a library, art gallery and restaurant. Near the school will be an artificial lake, a theater and concert hall.

Barbican's architectural imagination captured public and professional critics alike. But Barbican's chairman, wise in the ways of bureaucracy, said: "Progress depends on whether there is a red light or a green light. What is important is that the lights should not be set forever at amber."

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