We Love the Barbican (Once We're There)

Bob and I met at Liverpool Street station this afternoon (I almost said "evening," because it was dark by the time we met) and walked over to every pedestrian's nemesis: the Barbican. I've mentioned before how utterly labyrinthine it is and even after learning that this is not accidental, I still arrive outside its concrete fortifications with a realistic amount of expectation that it's going to take us three times as long to get where we're going than it would if we weren't in the Bermuda Triangle of the City. Nevertheless, we did alright tonight, only having to partly circle the Barbican before finding our way in. Along the way, we passed these striking sculptures at one intersection of walkways--I liked how the multiple heads seemed themselves unsure of which way to go, and had decided to stay put instead:

We popped into The Curve gallery to see what latest treasures were installed along its curving eighty-metre-long wall, and were towered over by Shirana Shahbazi's mural of images:

After coffee and a pitstop at the Barbican library to sign up for my City of London library membership (which remarkably wasn't yet one of the boroughs where I've signed up) and check out their great arts and music libraries, we began to head over to our destination for the evening--I say "began" because, true to Barbican form, we couldn't find our way there on our own, and only arrived at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama after asking for directions from a member of Barbican staff. Anton Lyakhovsky's performance on piano was wonderfully emotional and almost shocking in its energy, and the hour-long recital just flew past as we sat mesmerised by the sounds being created a few feet from where we were sitting.

As we were leaving the performance hall, I noticed this pleasing combination of light fixtures and an unusual clock, and snapped this pic

just before we left the building and began heading home in the cold night, looking forward to dinner and some TV in our nice warm living room. Brrr!