Khaotic twitters

What kind of day has it been:

• 10:07 Heading out for a walk along the Embankment and then see where my feet take me. #
• 11:37 Wound up at Trafalgar Square and popped into a bookstore. Typical. #
• 13:27 Am consuming something called Malaysian Chicken soup in a Pret on Charing Cross Road. #
• 16:35 Arrgh. Lost my umbrella. At least it only cost 1 pound. #

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London 2008: Braving the Labyrinth

I popped down to the Museum of London today at the Barbican, only to discover to my disappointment that the exhibits stop at the Great Fire of London — the lower galleries are being refurbished and won't be ready until Autumn of 2009... ah well, another excuse to return I suppose.

But since I was at the Barbican, I decided to go and seek the Minotaur.

The word "barbican" means a fortification, and is the only residential estate in the City of London, thirty-five acres of concrete tower blocks built on an area that was heavily bombed in World War II. Development of the Barbican Estate started in the mid-1950s and continued for the next two decades, some of those blocks over 400 feet high and some of the tallest in Europe. Aside from the residences, it houses the Barbican Arts Centre, but the walkways and the generally gloomy feel of the towers hemming you in from all sides lends the place an oppressive atmosphere, and it's nearly impossible to navigate your way around the mostly identical towers without the use of maps or signs, which thankfully there are. But even then it's a huge area to cover.

In the midst of this modern Labyrinth, it's probably appropriate that there's a Minotaur — not at the centre of it — but on one of the high walks, hidden in the midst of one of the elevated gardens. Sculpted in bronze by the late Michael Ayrton, I first came across it five years ago while walking from the Museum towards Moorgate Tube, and I quite forgot where it was in the intervening years; to the point where I almost thought I had imagined it. Trying to find it this time was a veritable quest which took me to the Barbican Arts Centre itself, which was completely in the wrong direction, until I remembered where it was that I was heading to the first time I saw it. Yes, I could have asked for directions, but where would the fun be in that? If one wants to see the Minotaur, one must brave the labyrinth.

After a few hours, some of which I spent at the Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art exhibit at the Barbican Art Gallery, I found my way to St. Alphage Highwalk and there it was, in all its glory. It's tucked among foliage, so if one doesn't actually go into the garden, one might quite easily miss it. But of course, once you step in, the presence of this honking bronze creature can't really escape you. And so, finally... photographic evidence that there lurks a Minotaur in the Barbican.