Brutalism Archives

Where does brutalism go after concrete?

The primary material of brutalism, the oft derided and now vaguely in vogue architectural movement, was concrete. Every architectural movement has its primary materials, be they glass, wood, or steel, but in the case of brutalism concrete dominates all discussion of the style’s underlying ideas. It is both the literal and figurative building block, such that it is hard to imagine brutalism as being in any way extricable from concrete. Designer Dantilon Brown’s “The Brutal Deluxe,” the latest in his series of generative architectural images, reimagines brutalism with a different building block: pre-existing buildings. “I set about programming algorithms to…

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Artist gives brutalist architecture a singing voice

Brutalist architecture has gotten a bad rap over the years—so much so that Goldfinger, the villain of James Bond fame, was named after Ernő Goldfinger, an architect inspired by brutalism. Mo H. Zareei (aka mHz) is trying to fight back against this societal repulsion with his evocative sound sculptures. He’s an Iranian electronic musician, sound artist, and music technology researcher, who is actively finding ways to use his interests in both brutalist architecture and noise to show how nuanced and poetic these two concepts can really be. In his series machine brut(e), Zareei makes use of three sound sculptures rasper, Mutor and rippler, to make unusual audiovisual combinations. Each…

Feature

High-Rise; a very British psychopathology

The first time I saw the Barbican Estate in London I was entranced. The layered terraces of pitted concrete, the crisscrossing walkways, those monolithic towers that seemed—as with Petra or Al-Hijr—like they might have been carved out of natural stone. It is rare, especially in a city like London, as layered and complex as a geological event, to walk into such a large space that feels so designed, so ordained. Yet, setting foot in those 20 acres of roughened concrete, I somehow felt that I was stepping into an idea, or an ideal, and out of reality entirely. Even now,…

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Solitaries will have you dreaming of concrete

How much does concrete weigh? This is, on the one hand, an insultingly simple question. Take some concrete. Put it on a scale. Record the weight. Multiply by some larger number if you’re using a sample. There you have it: concrete’s weight. It’s not really a mystery. But it’s not that easy. There’s the not insignificant matter of heft. Concrete, by dint of the way it is used, can come to feel heavy or miraculously lightweight. This is the sort of sensation that cannot adequately be calculated with a scale. You have to experience it, and that’s where Solitaries, a…

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Brutalism has found a second life in Minecraft

The case for preserving brutalist architecture requires some strange contortions. Defenders of gems like London’s Robin Hood Gardens or the Orange County Government Center must claim that buildings whose charms are derived from their heft and imposing strength are at risk and in need of our protection. This may be a necessary measure, but as with having your parents declared unfit to manage their affairs, it comes with a sense of loss. There are, of course, more tangible losses. In February, after a prolonged debate, the building that was once Chicago’s Prentice Women’s Hospital was demolished to make way for…

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An exhibit celebrates the brutalist playgrounds of the past, as should we all

Brutalism gets a bad name. Ok, let’s be honest, it has a bad name. If tomorrow morning you were tasked with encouraging parents to send their kids to a specific playground, you probably wouldn’t call it brutalist. Or would you? For a brief, wonderful moment in the middle of the 20th century, architects and planners endeavored to design brutalist playgrounds, and the results were often wonderful. These playgrounds are now the subject of an exhibit at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) by the Assemble collective and artist Simon Terrill. To mark the occasion, The Guardian has a series…