Goldfinger's design is based on his earlier and slightly smaller Balfron Tower (in Poplar, east London), and is in effect a sibling building.

The tower was completed at a time when high-rise tower blocks were going out of fashion as local authorities were beginning to realise the social problems they caused. It was said to have inspired JG Ballard's novel, High Rise, in which residents collapse into anarchy and wage war on each other's floors. A destiny of desolation and demolition seemed inevitable. Although Wendy who runs a bookshop in the city, and a resident of the Barbican insists that the novel is more reflective of life in the Barbican Estate!

Something unexpected, something astonishing, has happened. Trellick has clawed out of the abyss. Against all the odds, it has hewn a renaissance from the concrete. Crime and disorder have virtually evaporated. Lifts glide, boilers hum, management works!