3 March 1982: The Barbican Centre opens
First arts centre in the world to have music, theatre, visual arts, film and a tropical conservatory all under one roof opens.
Photographer Peter Bloomfield captures our rise from the rubble of a World War II bomb crater in the heart of the City of London into a world-class multi-arts centre.
In the first Barbican brochure, or Diary, as it was then called, we announced our opening celebrations, five days of events including a visit from Her Majesty The Queen.
Our opening celebrations also included performances from the Royal Shakespeare Company and London Symphony Orchestra as they settled into their new home venues.
Upstairs in the Art Gallery, we presented Aftermath: France 1945–54, New Images of Man.
The first public concert in the Barbican Hall was a gala performance presented by BBC Radio 2, Friday Night is Music Night.
Photo: Peter Bloomfield
8 October 1985: Les Misérables
First ever performance of the RSC's Les Misérables
Directed by Trevor Nunn and John Caird, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Cameron Mackintosh present the world premiere of Les Misérables on the Barbican stage.
The musical adaptation of a 19th Century novel by Victor Hugo opened to unfavourable reviews.
Now in its 32nd year, Les Misérables is currently the world's longest running musical, and has played to more than 65 million people in 42 countries and 22 languages.
Sun 14 Oct 2001: DJ Prichard G. Jams aka Aphex Twin
First silent disco in London

Audience members experience the first silent disco in London with Aphex Twin in the Barbican Conservatory
'To borrow a 1960s coinage, Aphex Twin's DJ set is more of a happening.
As ticket-holders enter the venue's handsome conservatory - steel and glass above, soil and woodchips below - they are issued with cordless headphones through which they will hear the set.
Take them off and there's no music, just the murmur of conversation and the trickle of water features.'

27 Feb–23 May 2010: Céleste Boursier-Mougenot
First time that finches have played electric guitars (in public)
'It turns out these birds can rock – one even goes all Jimmy Page with a twig'
French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's installation for The Curve consisted of a walk-though aviary for a flock of 40 zebra finches, furnished with electric guitars.
As the birds went about their routine activities, perching on or feeding from the various pieces of equipment, they created a captivating, live soundscape.
4 Oct 2012–3 Mar 2013: Random International: Rain Room
First time the UK has been able to control the weather
Random International's largest and most ambitious installation to date, Rain Room was a 100 square metre field of falling water designed for visitors to walk through and experience how it might feel to control the rain.
On entering The Curve, which was transformed by the monumental proportions of this carefully choreographed downpour, visitors heard the sound of water and feels moisture in the air before discovering the thousands of falling droplets would respond to their presence and movement – meaning they never got wet.
On average, the queue to see the piece lasted for around 6 hours.
The Barbican actively embraces the unknown in its search for meaningful experiences for its audiences.
The bold acts of faith this entails are what makes it possible to first publicly present works like 'Rain Room', which have a huge impact on the development of artistic practices.
We look forward to continuing to expect the unexpected over the next 35 years.
Photo: Wayne McGregor Dance perform in the Rain Room
5 Aug–31 Oct 2015: Hamlet
First NT Live broadcast from the Barbican - and the biggest single NT Live broadcast to date, seen by over 550,000 people worldwide
Directed by Lyndsey Turner
Produced by Sonia Friedman Productions
'The Barbican has been conjuring fantastic theatre experiences for 35 years, and my time on their stage was hugely enjoyable.
Long may it continue.'
Benedict Cumberbatch took on the title role in Shakespeare’s great tragedy for an exclusive twelve-week run of this compelling new production at the Barbican.
23–25 March 2017: Room 29
First UK performance of Room 29 by Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales
Do you believe in ghosts? What if a room could tell you the life-stories of the people that have inhabited it? Better still - what if it could sing you those stories? In Room 29, Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales give a voice to those ghosts, using music, theatrics, clips from classic Hollywood movies and more to reveal the secrets of Room 29 of the Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood.
Featuring contributions from film historian David Thomson and the stories of famous former occupants of the room such as Jean Harlow & Howard Hughes, the show was conceived during Jarvis’s own stay at Room 29, using one of the room’s more unusual features – a baby grand piano.
Visitors will be greeted by our concierge and given a key. Sit down, get comfortable – it will be our pleasure to serve up a night of entertainment like no other.
We look forward to welcoming you as our guest.
6–13 April 2017: What London Watches: Ten Films That Shook Our World
First time Londoners have been asked not only which films have changed their world, but will also have the opportunity to see a selection of London’s choices on the big screen.
Last year, we invited Londoners to share the stories behind the films that shook their world.
We wanted to create a unique crowd-sourced film season to represent London’s diverse communities on the big screen: What London Watches: Ten Films that Shook Our World.
Your films dated from 1902 to 2017, but the 2000s were your favourite decade.Your films spanned romance, drama, documentary, science fiction, animation and everything in between. Your favourite genre was drama.
With the support of London’s community groups, we received entries from across London’s boroughs, across the ages and backgrounds and the films and stories you shared represented just that.
The ten selected films include Bob Fosse’s Cabaret (1972), Hayoa Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), Michael Curitz’s Casablanca (1942) and Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay (1975).
From cinema evacuations in the Blitz and personal liberations to seeing humour and satire as a tool against prejudice, read the fascinating stories behind the films we’ll be screening at What London Watches.
19 April–20 May 2017: Barbican/Toneelgroep Amsterdam – Obsession
First performance of Ivo van Hove's Obsession
Jude Law plays the magnetically handsome, down-at-heel Gino in a new stage adaptation of Visconti’s penetrating social drama directed by Ivo van Hove.
Drifter Gino, powerful and graceful as a puma, encounters Giuseppe and his much younger, trapped wife Giovanna at their roadside restaurant and petrol station. He and Giovanna are so irresistibly attracted to one another they begin an affair while plotting to murder her husband. But the crime does not unite them in this chilling story where passion can lead only to destruction.
Obsession is one of three Toneelgroep Amsterdam productions directed here by Ivo van Hove in 2017 with Roman Tragedies in March and After the Rehearsal/ Persona in September.
14 September 2017: London Symphony Orchestra - Silent Symphony
First symphonic silent 'disco'
To celebrate the opening of the London Symphony Orchestra's 2017-18 season, and to mark Sir Simon Rattle's first concert as LSO Music Director, audiences will be able to enjoy the concert relayed live to the Barbican Sculpture Court, bringing silent disco technology to classical music for the first time. The programme will feature the best of British music from Helen Grime, Thomas Adès, Oliver Knussen, Elgar and Sir Harrison Birtwistle.
Back in 1982, the LSO performed on the Sculpture Court, and it's this excitement at the heart of the Barbican Centre we look forward to recreating in 2017.
21 Sep 2017–28 Jan 2018: Basquiat: Boom for Real
First large-scale exhibition of Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) in the UK
A pioneering prodigy of the downtown New York art scene, Basquiat came to the media’s attention in 1978 when he teamed up with his classmate Al Diaz to graffiti enigmatic statements across the city under the collective pseudonym SAMO©, before swiftly becoming one of the most celebrated artists of his generation.
Drawing from international museums and private collections, Basquiat: Boom for Real brings together an outstanding selection of more than 100 works, many never before seen in the UK, including a partial reconstruction of the first body of work that Basquiat exhibited, made for Diego Cortez’s watershed group show New York / New Wave at PS1 in 1981.
Photos: Room 29 - Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales © Alexandre Isard; Obsession, Jude Law and Halina Reijn © Jan Versweyveld; LSO perform on the Sculpture Court, 1982 © Peter Bloomfield; Jean-Michel Basquiat, Glenn, 1985. Courtesy Private Collection.
Barbican at 35
Share your Barbican Firsts with us on Twitter @barbicancentre #barbican35
Read more about our 35 Firsts, and our 5 Future Firsts in our 'Barbican at 35' blog collection.
Watch more videos from our archive on YouTube
As part of our 35th anniversary celebration, we commissioned poet, and Barbican Host, Paul Haworth, to write a poem to capture a day in the life of the Barbican, as seen by the people who work here.