The Barbican and online retailer Made.com have joined forces on a new furniture and homeware collection, and the influence is unmistakable from the off — this is brutalism translated into things you could actually live with. The 23-piece range leans hard on the strict geometry and sweeping curves that define the Barbican Centre itself, and it’s no abstract nod: the design team went back to the original floor plans of the estate’s residential flats, including work by Miriam Howitt, the designer behind five show flats built in the 1960s. What’s come out the other end is a genuinely cohesive collection, built to work as a full room or piece by piece.
A handful of objects do most of the heavy lifting. The Curve table lamp and floor lamp pair chrome bases with adjustable tubular shades modelled on the acoustic panels lining the Barbican’s concert hall — a detail that’s easy to miss until someone points it out, and then impossible to unsee. The Dual chairs carry wooden side panels styled to resemble poured concrete columns, while the Plinth coffee table, modular by design, echoes the blocky furniture dotted around the Barbican’s public spaces. A Brute Rug rounds things off, doing more or less exactly what it says on the tin.
The collection launches on 12 September, alongside an installation the Barbican and Made.com are staging to mark the occasion.