Performance venues

London's stages and concert rooms: the West End houses and the playhouses that make their own shows, the grand halls, the churches with a musical life, the jazz basements, the comedy clubs, the clubs proper, and the rooms above pubs where things start. What is on is listed under each venue, and in What's On.

What is on at them this week is in What's On: Performance

Barbican Centre

The concert hall at the centre of the Barbican, and the London Symphony Orchestra's home.

ClassicalPlayhousesWorth it for the building

The lakeside terrace in winter: rows of white benches on brick paving, round brick planters with fountains at the water's edge, a long terrace block on stilts across the lake, and a church tower among the towers of the City behind. — The Lakeside Terrace, St Giles Cripplegate's tower at the far end.

The Barbican's lake seen from under a concrete walkway: a long block of flats with rows of balconies curving round the green water, a waterfall spilling from a raised platform, benches on the brick terrace and glass towers beyond. — The lake from the high walk.

Stepping stones of brick crossing the green lake to a platform where someone sits at a small table, tall reeds along the bank, a long terrace block on stilts with balconies of plants beyond, and the dark brick school building on the right.

Looking down on the lake: a round brick platform at the edge of a weir in front, a brick walkway leading out to planted islands of reeds and shrubs under iron domes, and the terrace blocks with their curved balconies around the water.

The lake from under the high walk: planted islands and reeds in green water, a brick terrace with benches, a long block of flats with rows of balconies enclosing the far side, and glass towers rising behind it.

Also in Museums and Art and Architecture.

The hall seats about 1,900 and was designed as the resident home of the London Symphony Orchestra, which plays the bulk of its London concerts here. The acoustic was reworked in 1994 and again in 2001 after years of complaint, and the room is now a good deal better than its reputation among people who last heard it in the 1980s.

The programme goes well beyond the LSO - the BBC Symphony Orchestra is an associate, contemporary music is unusually well served, and the centre runs jazz and world music through the same hall. Getting in is the famous difficulty; the highwalks are signposted and the signs are still not enough.

Where: Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS
Nearest station: Barbican · 4 min walk

Google Maps @barbicancentre barbican.org.uk

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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.