Brutalist architecture

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Brutalism is an architectural style that spawned from the modernist architectural movement and which flourished from the 1950s to the 1970s. The early style was largely inspired by the work of Swiss architect, Le Corbusier (in particular his Unité d'Habitation building) and of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The term originates from the French béton brut, or "raw concrete". Brutalist buildings are usually formed with striking blockish, geometric, and repetitive shapes, and often revealing the textures of the wooden forms used to shape the material, which is normally rough, unadorned poured concrete. Not all brutalist buildings are formed from concrete. Instead, the building can achieve Brutalist quality through a rough, blocky appearance and the expression of its structural materials and forms and services on its exterior. Many of Alison and Peter Smithson's private houses are built from brick, and Richard Rogers & Renzo Piano's Centre Pompidou is often regarded as a Brutalist structure. Brutalist building materials can include brick, glass, steel, rough-hewn stone and gabion (also known as trapion).

Brutalism as an architectural style was also associated with a social utopian ideology which tended to be supported by its designers, especially Peter and Alison Smithson, near the height of the style. The failure of positive communities to form early on in some Brutalist structures, possibly due to the larger processes of urban decay that set in after WWII (especially in the United Kingdom), led to the combined unpopularity of both the ideology and the architectural style.

1 Style
2 History
3 "The New Barbarism"
4 Resurgence
5 Figures
6 List of notable brutalist structures
7 External links

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Style

Image:Bostoncityhall.jpg Brutalism is related and similar to (and often confused with) the modernist, minimalist and internationalist styles of architecture. All of these styles make heavy use of repetition and regularity in their features, but brutalist designs also often incorporate striking, abject irregularities as well.

Another common theme in brutalist designs is the exposition of the building's functions -- ranging from their structure and services to their actual human use -- in the exterior of the building. In other words, Brutalist style is "the celebration of concrete." In the Boston City Hall (illustration left), strikingly different and projected portions of the building indicate the special nature of the rooms behind those walls, such as the mayor's office or the city council chambers. From another perspective of this theme, the design of the Hunstanton School included placing the facility's water tank, a normally hidden service feature, in a prominently placed and visible tower.

Critics argue that this abstract nature of brutalism makes the style unfriendly and uncommunicative, instead of integrating and protective as its proponents intended. For example, the location of the entrance of a brutalist structure is rarely obvious to the visitor.

Brutalism is also criticised as disregarding the social, historic, and architectural environment of its surroundings, making the introduction of such structures in existing developed areas appear very stark, out of place, and alien.

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History

Brutalism gained large momentum in Britain during the middle 20th century, as economically depressed (and WWII-ravaged) communities sought inexpensive construction and design methods for low-cost housing, shopping centers, and government buildings. Combined with the socially progressive intentions behind brutalist "streets in the sky" housings like Corbusier's Unité, brutalism was promoted as a positive option for forward-moving, modern urban housing. In practice however, many of the buildings lacked many of the community-serving features of Corbusier's vision, and instead developed into claustrophobic, crime-ridden tenements (Robin Hood Gardens is a particularly notorious example). Some such buildings took decades to develop into positive communities. The rough coolness of concrete lost its appeal under a damp and gray northern sky, and its fortress-like material touted as vandalproof soon proved vulnerable to spray-can graffiti.

Brutalist designs were also often initially criticised as eyesores. The current Fodor's guide to London mentions the former Home Office building at 50 Queen Anne's Gate as "hulking." Because the style is essentially that of poured concrete it tends to be inexpensive to build and maintain (but very difficult to modify). However, in the case of Trellick Tower, the design has ultimately proved very popular with both tenants and owner-occupier residents. In time, many brutalist structures become appreciated as landmarks by their communities for their uniqueness and eye-catching appearance.

In recent years, the bad memories of underserved brutalist community structures have led to their eager demolition to make way for newer, more traditionally oriented community structures. Despite a nascent modernist appreciation movement, and the identified success that some of this style's offspring have had, many others have been or are slated to be demolished.

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"The New Barbarism"

Brutalism has some severe critics, one of the most famous being Charles, Prince of Wales, whose speeches and writings on architecture have excoriated brutalism, calling many of the structures "piles of concrete." "You have to give credit to the Luftwaffe," he once said. "When they destroyed our skyline, they at least replaced it with just rubble." Much of the criticism comes not from the designs of the buildings, but rather from the fact that concrete facades don't age well in a cool, damp, cloudy climate such as northwestern Europe's, becoming streaked with water stains and sometimes even moss. In warmer desert climates, brutalist buildings are better preserved and in such places have often come to be regarded as works of art.

The architecture column of Private Eye, "Nooks and Corners", began life as "Nooks and Corners of the New Barbarism", with "new barbarism" clearly intended as a reference to "new brutalism". The column is skeptical about modern architecture in general, but over the course of some four decades has reserved its strongest wrath for brutalism, especially in government-sponsored projects.

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Resurgence

Although the brutalist movement was largely dead by the mid-1980s, it has experienced an updating of sorts in recent years. Many of the style's rougher aspects have been softened in newer buildings, with concrete facades often being sandblasted to create a stone-like surface, covered in stucco, or composed of patterned pre-cast elements. Many modernist architects such as Steven Ehrlich, Ricardo Legorreta and Gin Wong have been doing just that in many of their recent projects. The firm of Victor Gruen and Associates has revamped the style for the many courthouse buildings it has been contracted to design. Architects from Latin America have been reviving the style on a smaller scale in recent years. Brutalism has recently experienced a major revival in Israel, due to the perceived sense of strength and security the style creates. With the development of LiTraCon — a form of translucent concrete — a new brutalist movement may be on the horizon.

Even in Britain, where the style was most prevalent and later most reviled, a number of buildings have recently (as of 2006) appeared in an updated Brutalist style, including deRijke Marsh Morgan's 1 Centaur Street in Lambeth, London, and Elder & Cannon's The Icon in Glasgow in Scotland. The 2005 Stirling Prize shortlist contained a number of buildings (most notably Zaha Hadid's BMW factory and the eventual winner, Enric Miralles' Scottish Parliament) featuring significant amounts of exposed concrete, something that would be been regarded as aesthetically unacceptable when then prize was inaugurated nine years previously. There has also been a reappraisal of first-generation Brutalist architecture and a growing appreciation that dislike of the buildings often stems from poor maintenance and social problems resulting from poor management rather than the designs themselves. In 2005, Channel 4 ran a documentary, I Love Carbuncles which placed Brutalism in a more positive light. Some Brutalist buildings have been granted Listed status and others, such as Gillespie, Kidd and Coia's St. Peter's Seminary, named by Prospect magazine's survey of architects as Scotland's greatest post-war building, have been the subject of conservation campaigns. The Twentieth Century Society (ironically, headed by Gavin Stamp, a.k.a. "Nooks & Corners" columnist 'Piloti') has campaigned against the demolition of buildings such as the Tricorn Centre and Gateshead Car Park.

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Figures

Architects associated with the brutalist style include Erno Goldfinger, husband-and-wife pairing Peter and Alison Smithson, and, to a lesser extent perhaps, Sir Denys Lasdun. Outside of Britain, Louis Kahn's government buildings in Asia and John Andrews's government and institutional structures in Australia exhibit the creative height of the style. Paul Rudolph is another noted Brutalist. More recent Modernists such as I.M. Pei and Tadao Ando have also designed notable brutalist works.

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