The Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library, mostly dealing with medecine and social history. The exhibitions are unusual and engaging, and the permanent collection includes bizarre items such as medieval masks and human remains.
Always interesting exhibitions and a nice little shop selling magazines, prints and books.. Small and simple gallery, surrounded by Hyde Park's beautiful elegant landscape.
The Barbican is worth visiting for it's brutalist architecture alone. The concert programming is really diverse; it's home to the BBC Syphony Orchestra, but you'll also find bands like the Dirty Projectors and the National amongst the classical and contemporary composer line up. Plenty of art, dance and theatre too, however, the Conservatory is the real gem that's not to be missed.
Even if you have seen it hundreds of times it will still stop you in your tracks. A great piece of architecture and apparently the largest brick structure in Europe.