Brutalist interior design is a distinct branch of the Brutalist movement, which emerged in the mid-20th century and is known for its stark, rugged beauty. Originating in the 1950s, this style emphasizes exposure, rawness, and creating an audacious spatial experience. It is characterized by its use of raw materials like concrete, steel, and wood, emphasizing their inherent beauty and texture without additional decoration.
The brutalist movement, led by French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier, focused on the use of concrete, unfinished industrial materials, strong structural elements, rigid shapes, and a monochromatic color scheme. The style is known for bold, one-of-a-kind home accents and furniture encrusted with Brutalist carved stones, metal chunks, and indiscreet fixings. Brutalist spaces are often institutional, with hard-wearing, mass-produced furnishings inside.
Brutalist design is about simplicity and functionality, focusing on form over decoration. It does not feature intricate details or elaborate details, but rather displays steadfast safety, comfort, and durability. It inspires feelings of calmness and unbreakable tranquility.
The main features of brutalist interior design include raw materials, unpolished surfaces, neutral tones, chunky silhouettes, and geometric shapes. The focus is on how people will move through and use the space, creating specific zones that tie together cohesively.
In summary, Brutalist interior design is characterized by its emphasis on raw materials, unpolished surfaces, neutral tones, chunky silhouettes, and geometric shapes. This style has become a popular choice in the ever-evolving landscape of interior design, showcasing the inherent beauty and functionality of raw materials.
📹 Are You Ready to Level Up Your Interior Design? Brutalism Is Here!
If you’re interested in interior design and are looking to explore a new style, then this video is for you! By the end of the video, …
What are the characteristics of brutalist design?
Brutalist architecture, a style popular from the 1950s to the 1980s, is characterized by its blocky, heavy appearance, simple, graphic lines, lack of ornamentation, utilitarian feel, monochromatic palette, raw concrete exteriors, rough surfaces, and modern materials like steel, glass, stone, and gabions. Originating in England, it spread globally and is characterized by a crude, minimalist design that lacks flourishes and classic beauty.
Brutalist buildings are often seen in urban dystopias and are often characterized by small windows and modular elements. The use of raw concrete exteriors and unfinished surfaces adds to the overall aesthetic appeal of Brutalist architecture.
What does brutalist style mean?
The Brutalist architectural style, derived from the French phrase “beton brut,” is characterized by the use of basic building materials, particularly concrete, and a prominent display of these materials.
What is the difference between art deco and Brutalism?
The graphic design style known as brutalism is characterized by its emphasis on honesty and boldness, rejecting the idea of polish and perfection. This style is characterized by its rawness, texture, and asymmetry, often incorporating elements of art deco. For instance, brutalism uses exposed brick and concrete, while minimalism focuses on sleekness and simplicity. Modernism emphasizes form and function, while brutalism adds social commentary and emotional impact.
Swiss Style prioritizes grid-based layouts and neutrality, while brutalism embraces asymmetry and challenges norms. The key elements of brutalism include raw materials, functionality, and a sense of making a statement.
What is a brutalist interior?
Brutalist Interior Design, originating in the 1950s, is a style that emphasizes exposure, rawness, and creating an audacious spatial experience. These spaces are characterized by strong sculptural elements, bulky and unfinished, stark, and monolithic expressions. Brutalist interior design provides a flexible canvas for designers to conceptualize spaces by integrating the inherent nature of each material. This style emerged during the post-war era of the 1950s and introduced an alliance with industrial materials, predominantly concrete.
Architects, engineers, and designers aimed to harness industrial techniques to devise modern solutions with subtle historical emphasis, creating a unique and expressive space. The fundamental characteristics of Brutalist interior design include minimal furniture, curved elements, accent lighting, and contrasting textures and materials.
How do you identify Brutalism?
Brutalist architecture emerged after World War II, focusing on large geometric forms, simple lines, rough surfaces, exposed concrete, and monochromatic palettes. This style emerged as a response to limited resources and the aesthetic language of modernism, with young architects rejecting decorative and ornamental architecture and instead focusing on simplicity and honest expression of materials. Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse, a self-contained concrete structure, is often credited as the catalyst for the style.
The philosophy behind Brutalist architecture is rooted in the belief that architectural design should prioritize functionality, honesty, and social purpose. The style is often associated with socialist utopian ideas and was often used in affordable housing projects to address modern needs. Early Brutalist buildings often showcased the raw beauty of materials, such as concrete, while emphasizing structural elements.
The perceived “darkness” or “coldness” of Brutalist buildings is often due to the honest expression of materials and a deliberate rejection of decorative elements, reflecting the design’s focus on functionality and the socio-political context of its time.
What is the concept of brutalist interior design?
Brutalist Interior Design, originating in the 1950s, is a style that emphasizes exposure, rawness, and creating an audacious spatial experience. These spaces are characterized by strong sculptural elements, bulky and unfinished, stark, and monolithic expressions. Brutalist interior design provides a flexible canvas for designers to conceptualize spaces by integrating the inherent nature of each material. This style emerged during the post-war era of the 1950s and introduced an alliance with industrial materials, predominantly concrete.
Architects, engineers, and designers aimed to harness industrial techniques to devise modern solutions with subtle historical emphasis, creating a unique and expressive space. The fundamental characteristics of Brutalist interior design include minimal furniture, curved elements, accent lighting, and contrasting textures and materials.
Why is Brutalism controversial?
Critics of the Brutalist style find it unappealing due to its cold appearance, projecting an atmosphere of totalitarianism, and association with urban decay. However, the style is appreciated by others and preservation efforts are taking place in the United Kingdom. The movement was largely over by the late 1970s and early 1980s, but has experienced a resurgence of interest since 2015 with the publication of guides and books.
Many defining aspects of the style have been softened in newer buildings, with concrete façades often sandblasted to create a stone-like surface, stucco covered, or composed of patterned, precast elements. These elements are also found in renovations of older Brutalist buildings, such as the redevelopment of Sheffield’s Park Hill.
Why is Brutalism unpopular?
Critics of the Brutalist style find it unappealing due to its cold appearance, projecting an atmosphere of totalitarianism, and association with urban decay. However, the style is appreciated by others and preservation efforts are taking place in the United Kingdom. The movement was largely over by the late 1970s and early 1980s, but has experienced a resurgence of interest since 2015 with the publication of guides and books.
Many defining aspects of the style have been softened in newer buildings, with concrete façades often sandblasted to create a stone-like surface, stucco covered, or composed of patterned, precast elements. These elements are also found in renovations of older Brutalist buildings, such as the redevelopment of Sheffield’s Park Hill.
What style replaced Art Deco?
Art Deco, defined by its lavish, geometric, and pastel-hued opulence, represented the epitome of modernity at the turn of the 20th century. Following the Great Depression, the style was deemed frivolous and was subsequently supplanted by Modernism, which espoused minimalism and geometric forms.
What is brutalist home decor?
Brutalist interior design, a movement that emerged after World War II, features raw materials, unpolished surfaces, neutral tones, chunky silhouettes, and geometric shapes. Le Corbusier’s work was a significant influence on this style, which was initially seen as an aesthetic representation of poorer countries and Soviet movements. However, mid-century modern architecture, a softer manifestation of brutalist architecture, has influenced contemporary design by using raw concrete and floor-to-ceiling windows.
Modern brutalism is evident in the work of interior designers like Kelly Wearstler, Lenny Kravitz, Paul Evans, and Gustaf Westman, who emphasize structural and spatial depth in furniture, wall coverings, decorative objects, and architectural design. Neo-brutalist interior design is a popular trend in the 20th century.
What is Brutalism in design?
BRUTALIST design, a style influenced by Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alison, and Pether Smithson, is characterized by organic textures, massive forms, and minimal, streamlined designs. It emerged after World War II to address the need for space-efficient and affordable housing in cities and institutions. Brutalist architecture, which includes materials like concrete, glass, steel, brass, and brick, is either organic with rough textures or minimal and streamlined, prioritizing function over form. Examples of institutional brutalist buildings include the National Theater in London and the Geisel Library in California.
📹 Brutalist Architecture in 6 Minutes: Ugly or Beautiful? 🤔
Can concrete be beautiful? Proponents of Brutalism certainly thought so. The general public, however, remains divided.
Because of its sculptural nature, I love seeing brutalist buildings on their own, with all the attention set towards it. However, if located in an urban environment, it either looks out of place when built near older and newer styles, or it looks drab when built among other brutalist apartment buildings. I’ve also seen a revival of “eco-brutalism” which isn’t actually very eco-friendly, but just brutalist architecture overgrown with plant life (which gives it a nice contrast).
So living in Estonia, we have a lot of these types of structures. When it comes to government buildings or museums or such, I see the beauty of this type of architecture. But when it’s looking at apartment complexes built during the soviet union, it is a sad reminder of what was and what may be again, and how it affects the everyday person. I will say my favorite part is when apartment owners of a complex come together and allow for a renovation of the exterior. Some even get murals on the sides of the building. Turning a sad reminder of the past into something new and beautiful.
As someone who usually prefers colorful environments, part of me wants to find brutalist architecture bland and ugly, but I can’t help being oddly fascinated by it. I think part of its charm (for me personally) has something to do with the coldness of vast, empty concrete rooms feeling more like liminal spaces to explore than homes to inhabit. The post-apocalyptic vibe strongly appeals to my extreme introversion.
As with any Architectural movement, there are good and bad designs, functional and well-engineered buildings, and those that should never have been approved. Brutalism, at its best, is a well-designed and engineered building that makes a stamp upon its environment and stands the test of time. At its worst, it is a dehumanizing crumbling eyesore.
We have many examples of brutalist architecture in Latin America as well. In Venezuela for instance (which is the perfect example for economic hardship and decay) a lot of cities were really developed during the mid century/ brutalist era. For instance, in Caracas you can see theaters, universities, government buildings, malls, museums and even housing in that style. One of my favorites is the Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex. Mexico is another country that comes to mind.
I had a “showerthought” recenltly concerning Brutalism: The architects of this style spent their childhood in air-raid shelters. So it’s no wonder that they associate safety, “cosyness” and survival with this massive concrete buildings. Later, more lucky generations don’t have that association, so to us it’s just ugly. My city has put several brutalist buildings under preservation order, and while I wouldn’t mind those eyesores to disappear, that’s exactly how baroque fans thought when they tore down gothic buildings so who knows, maybe the future will find some appreciation for those buildings.
I grew up in the 80s New York City. My families originally lived in a very bad part of Brooklyn (Brownsville) until we moved to a bucolic tree-lined Long Island suburb. I remember across the street from our old building was a massive public school and housing complex, all built in the early 1970s in Brutalist/Futuristic style, and than decaying into a hellish, ghetto landscape. No Optimism. No Beauty. This is one art movement that I have no love for.
If the support for Brutalism comes largely from architects, this in itself makes the notion of ‘saving’ these buildings highly suspect. Architects, along with city planners, and the extremely corrupt construction industry, have a lot to answer for. They have ruined so many cities with their monuments to hubris and corporate feudalism. They have stripped cities of ornamentation and human scale buildings to create lovely crystalline visions to look down on from private jets. City after city falls to the inhumanity of the cult of architecture. So no, only save the most stark and frightening as reminders of the insanity of the 20th Century, and eliminate the rest, finding suitable uses for all of that concrete. The mantra, ‘form follows function’ is right up there with ‘Arbeit macht frei’ as a totalitarian axiom. (No apologies to Loos, Bauhaus, the International Style, and Postmodernism.)
Thanks for the great article! I watched it because I wanted to learn to appreciate the brutalist style in spite of the fact that I despise it. I tried but it didn’t work. While I can appreciate Brutalism on an intellectual level, and what the architects were trying to do, I can’t do so on an emotional level. It’s just so heavy, brooding, gray, cold and foreboding in style. (Brood-alism perhaps?) I don’t understand how it’s ‘honest’ in presentation to the material it is built with when the Romans built with it 2000 years ago and came up with something completely different. They created soaring spaces, arches and graceful structures full of natural light that inspire us still today. The Parthenon, for example. So I don’t believe it’s the material, it’s the style and presentation. You could also make heavy, thick, windowless structures out of logs, rock and metal that show their ‘honest’ characteristics, but that’s just one way of using and expressing those materials. I think Brutalism was an experiment in architecture that didn’t catch on or age well, but whose better examples should be preserved. We need to appreciate the thinking behind these structures while also making it less likely we will make these same architectural mistakes again.
I’ve always had the idea of a design philosophy, a design derived from which where the artist was from, you can see that in many cultures throughout the world, for example, -Japan’s Traditional Homes are stilted, foundations on a curious incline, and made out of wood, which is to reflect their nature: Typhoons, Flooding, and in constant Earthquake -In South East Asia, in Stilted, mostly wood and rattan with high roofs are often used, as a way to, again reflect and protect themselves of their natural surroundings, Typhoons, Heavy winds, and floods, -In Greece, the open air, hardy foundation of their buildings reflect the humid climate of the region and their susceptibility to earthquakes, that is why most Traditional Greek Architecture is often small and compact, save their temples, palaces, and city centers, which often favour compact-ness and strength Brutalist Architecture, I think, although I’m not much of a fan reflects this idea, the warring and destructive nature of both the 1st and 2nd World Wars to an entire generation is devastating, to me, Brutalist Architecture reflect Order in Chaos, Protection and a Sturdy foundation against what they fear most: Themselves
While I don’t love all Brutalist buildings, I appreciate the movement and will always defend it. Nowadays when so many buildings are nondescript, amorphous, or unoriginal glass blocks that simply blend into the sky, I long for the warmth and character of stone structures. Diversity in a city’s architecture is something to be celebrated. It shows history, change, and variety of thought, so give Brutalism some love.
There is a classically Brutalist house a block from me. At first I thought it hadn’t been finished, but it was. I’ve tried my best to like it, but I’m not doing too well. I think silly things each day when I drive past it, like “Maybe if he put some pretty curtains up”, but of course that would ruin it as a piece of Brutalist architecture.
I work at Nuneaton Library in the UK. I have used Blender to recreate the building as I think it will be torn down after we get our new building. My hope is to have a 3d version for the public to see after it has gone, as many locals consider it to be an iconic building in the town and have campaigned to get it registered as a listed building to no avail. My mum was a small child when it was built and she thought it was the most futuristic thing she had ever seen back in the 60s. It was designed by Frederick Gibberd. As someone who found this type of architecture depressing and hideous, I have developed an appreciation for it as I have recreated it in minute detail. I have also seen photos of how it looked in the 60s and I love his use of natural light and how he considered the space around the building to be as important as the building itself. A local MP said it looked like a soviet style car park, and although I agree, I have grown to love it and will miss it when it is gone. I won’t miss the leaks though. Concrete doesn’t age well.
In Brazil, more specifically in the state of Rio de Janeiro, there are numerous buildings with a similar style. They are the CIEP ( CENTRO INTEGRADO DE EDUCAÇÃO PÚBLICA) In Igles CIEP ( INTEGRATED CENTER OF PUBLIC EDUCATION ) These standardized buildings were designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer.
I lived in Boston for a decade, and I confess I never loved the intensely brutalist design of its City Hall (several shots of which are featured in this article). The building, and the nigh-featureless plaza around it, are really jarring compared with the centuries-old buildings of the nearby neighborhoods. I understand it’s acclaimed by architects, but IMO housing public governmental functions in a forbidding and inscrutable concrete fortress is simply not a good look.
Well done. Perhaps you should have showen more of the brilliant ones that do hold the publics favour to counter the negative view held by some concerning this architecture. I find many of the buildings around the world simply wonderful. The Robarts Library in Toronto, Ontairo, Canada is a very fine example of quite successful this architecture.
I think that we should always try to fix something before just replacing it. If part of the building is still viable then build around it. Keep the parts that work and fix or change the parts that don’t. Razing something to the ground because it is more convenient to is not ok. In Vancouver housing prices are so high that they demolish 5 year old house and make condominium’s.
The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center is mostly brutalist. I grew up going to the Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City on the OUHSC campus and I hated the style when I was young, but I worked at the OUHSC campus in adulthood and the addition of natural elements like vines and flowers has made me love them. Probably a combination of relatively recent changes and nostalgia.
I’m in love with brutalism. It’s complexity shows us that the architectures that made them had a goal for a more integrated society. And there’s this mindset of making something that will last for hundreds of years, being repurposed and used for generations to come. This is how this should be build, and the soviets knew it.
Brutalism was also very big in Latin America; there are a lot of examples in Mexico and Colombia. In Mexico, which is a socialist democratic country, it was taken as a way to develop cheap and lasting urbanization projects spanning from public hospitals, to apartment buildings and museums. This lasted a few decades all the way to the late 80’s.
nothing is lost now that there’s the internet, somewhere someone has posted articles of everything that has ever happened since the invention of the motion picture camera. photos, montages, articles, movies, epic dramas and documentaries are all ensconced now on the internet. tear down a building, go to the internet to see it again.
I think it’s like a lot of other architectural movements. There are great brutalist buildings and bad ones. I like it generally because I favor things that are heavily textured. I used to work across the street from Boston City Hall, thought it was a great looking building. There are lots of good examples. I wonder if there’s going to be a neobrutalist movement at some point. As for brutalist preservation, I say take it case by case. Some of these buildings are preservation worthy, but others deserve a date with the wrecking ball. I know of one church that was poorly constructed and had to be closed, due to chunks of concrete falling, a real safety hazard. It was a cool space, had aluminum benches for pews, and a huge skylight shaped like a dove. The acoustics were amazing in there, but at the end of the day it wad a poorly executed design.
While I understand the meaning behind them, I absolute despise the sigth of Brutalist buildings, maybe also because in the city where I live (Prague) those buildings feel out of place next to their surroundings of mostly baroque and liberty architecture, also there is the negative association with the former Communist regime.
1:46 is that the MASP (Sao Paulo Art’s Museum), but with the support uncollored ? it’s so DIFFERENT and BRUTAL. The red colors they used to paint it make it a lot better looking. (edit) i knew the classical Brutalist examples, but you showed some of their everyday usage… and boy-oh-boy, i never realized how influential Brutalism is on most of Brazilian architecture. i was never a fan of the classical examples, and never a fan of the Brazilian architecture, and now i understand the connection why
I think this is not an either/or question. As with any style there are the good examples and the…not so great examples. Where brutalism is concerned, the difference mostly comes down to one key point which applies to architecture in general: all architecture is local. At it’s best, brutalism embraces this fact: the building literally made from the ground it is built on, sitting in the contours of the landscape or cityscape like a tattoo. It echoes it’s surroundings in it’s shapes, and how it manipulates the light. It will deliberately play with the boundary between building and garden: bringing the outside in and the inside out. Although monumental it will be as visually deceptive as the best cathedrals: seeming suspended from the heavens above the earth rather than dropped upon it to oppress it. At the worst, brutalist buildings are like monumental glacial erratics: alien presences haphazardly deposited in otherwise cohesive landscapes and cityscapes. Monuments to human arrogance, and insults to their locations. When they do not synchronize with their location: they can be symbols of outside imposition. Like an obelisk uprooted from it’s home and dragged to a conquering capital.
Brutalism seems very hit or miss. However I think the context and purpose in which they were built has proved to be almost as important as the design itself. The Barbican is a center of arts and community, and was designed meticulously, despite it’s flaws. This contrasts deeply with the Balfron Tower and Pruitt Igoe, which weren’t really invested in for the long term in the same way, and seemed to have been a case of “build our problems away”, without having the same level of care and budget put into them.
I like good examples of Brutalism like the Barbican. I think a lot of people hate Brutalism because they think of it in terms of ‘were a city to have one style would this be appropriate?’ however Brutalism can often be understood by looking at it against its context and by looking at it’s sculptural quality, like a building hewn out of a massive rock. The problem with the style is that it’s VERY powerful so if you get it wrong then it’s overpowering.
I think that architects and other defenders of the Brutalist style generally do a very poor job of responding to criticisms and distaste from the general public. When the reaction to a piece of art is, “How ugly, how cold, how inhuman, how dystopian” responding by pointing out things like artistic appreciation for the form if you’re familiar with X, Y, Z….is not really a good response. It makes people feel like they’re being looked down on for not “getting it”. Advocates of Brutalism need to look at their messaging and communication if they want to convince people of its worth, because as is a lot of the messaging sidesteps addressing what it is people are reacting negatively to
Thanks to the narrator for giving us a few antonyms for ugly: sculptural massive, rigid, stripped down, blunt, rough, lifeless monochrome. All the buildings were designed to be utilitarian. They were made to make an impression but they are lifeless monstrosities. Now people want to preserve the history of ugliness and venerate them? Most people do not want to near nor in them. The buildings are oppressive to humanity. People want to fellowship. They want to commune. At least the design for a sports stadium or a casino is more honest than le béton brut. Any frivolous distraction is lost upon the fanatic.
I think there are beautiful brutalist buildings that pique interest and imagination. However, most are not that. Most are just big rectangular blocks. I think brutalism comes to a greater form when it is decidedly NOT just a big rectangle. I want to see passageways, hidden valleys, caves, places to take in a view. To some degree, the building should not just be a building but an environment. And most of all I think brutalist buildings actually look very well when complimented by lots of greenery around, in and on the building. Perhaps thats also a move away from brutalism but in my view thats how it turns from uninviting to inviting. From bland to exciting.
about architecture I woul like to see as follow : deconstructivists- Hi-tech in tokyo, Constructivists like tatlin or so, space leisure architecture space stations on distant planets like on mars project mars one, organic architecture, bioclimatic ancient roman and greek, neoclassic XXI century housing, sci-fi scenography architectures,
Personally, I am not a fan of this style of architecture. It’s cold, oppressive and in all honesty, depressing. However, I think there is still a certain beauty to all the negative qualities I see in the style. I really hate it though when they use Brutalism as an excuse to erect a poorly built building.
I actually like brutalism BECAUSE of the dystopian aesthetic. It doesn’t try to hide hide structural problems behind a veneer of illusory crap. Mind you, I do also like more decorative styles like the Neogothic, Art Nouveau and Art Deco, but nothing that looks patronising like a children’s playpen or the wankers that omit a certain window on some floors to make the exterior look irregular and faux natural by depriving me of additional sunlight for no good reason. 5:36 I don’t like these skybridges though. They’re like the RGB lighting of architecture. Why are they there? To connect an existing building to a new one, fine, but these were build together and cannot function without each other. What if a disaster makes them unstable? The only justification I can think of is additional windows for apartments, but it’s just a blank wall! A checkerboard of 360-windowed skycubes where the wind can flow between would be cool. But here, they don’t look pretty and serve no use.
I am a fan of brutalist architecture. It would be great if those buildings could be preserved. As it is part of our history. Also if I had the money, my dream home would be of a brutalist design on an acarage. Something that would show a striking contrast to the surrounding landscape and at the same time look like it has always been there due to its monolithic styling.
It’s my view that Brutalist structures leave beautiful ruins.. they decay away in a very natural, organic way that creates a stark contrast with their original forms. Walls erode away to reveal inner spaces otherwise completely hidden from view, allowing them to be viewed in ways not otherwise possible. It’s almost poetic, really.
Brutalism is designed to show power, to be ridged and unmovable. It’s purpose is to let the observer know no matter what happens that these buildings will stand strong. They are not designed to integrate or hide. They are designed to stand strong and dominate where ever they are, a brutalistic monalyth in a jungle shows that perfectly. The concrete does not give in to the nature but opposes it how it should. It shows the strength of humans and the power we haves. Truly powerful structures
Ever since I was a child, I’ve always appreciated the look of just wood and bare concrete. I watched both our houses as it were built from start to finish, and I’ve shared my ideas with my father, but coming from a child he found it silly. The look, the smell, the feeling when you’re inside a room and all you can see is wood and concrete, it’s something.
Watching this gave me a slight increase in appreciation for Brutalist buildings but I still genuinely hate to see them, here in Canada, many examples feel cold, unfeeling and very impersonal. Also as a 90s kid, growing up perusal shows like the OG Unsolved Mysteries (dealing with cases from the 1950s-1970s), I may have begun to associate buildings of that era with negativity. Funny how the brain works.
The university near my house was somewhat loosely built in brutalism style, just like many old buildings were built in the same era in my city. I grown up seeing it fine structure and intimidating form and yet I don’t know why I still love it. Unfortunately it was tore down and rebuilt, the same fate as it “peers”. After playing the game Control made be Remedy, I was madly in love and addicted to brutalist architecture.
Before perusal this clip, I definetly wasn’t a fan of brutalist architecture. I perceived them as cold, and unappealing, like mentioned in the clip. However, when learning about the concept of “honesty derived from it’s form and material” it opened a new perspective. And I grew an appreaciation for these buildings, although I still think they look cold at first sight. It was also interesting to see how brutalism developed and evolved, as well as its comeback. I hope with its comeback, people also think about ways about maintaining these buildings.
You’ve pointed everyone in the wrong direction. Concrete is not the problem, the building design is. There are plenty of brutalist buildings not made of concrete, at least not on the surface, and some nice ones that are. Concrete is liquid stone but has, mostly, an ugly surface finish. In my opinion, most of those who claim to like brutalist concrete buildings are those who don’t have to live in them or, sometimes worse, in view of them. They force their assumed superior, educated tastes on everyone else. Most of them have never been forced to live in concrete monstrosities and the effects they have on physical and mental health. Designed with the best intentions? No, designed cheaply by people who forced them on people they looked on as beneath them. I don’t care what names are dropped to try and trendify them, the vast majority are hideous carbuncles that those who praise them wouldn’t live in for nothing.
Depends on the building. Brutalism for brutalism’s sake is not appealing, but brutalist buildings w/interesting angles should definitely be preserved. I rather’ like the dystopian futuristic look to them. It’s a reminder of a future we never had, for better or worse. Don’t like so much concrete? Add some greenery, glass & paint to any brutalist building. It’ll look awesome..
Well, I love Brutalism! People call it inhumane and depressing, but nothing depresses me more than seeing people being happy about things that I don’t like, and I don’t like “happy” architecture. Brutalist buildings are not happy buildings, but that’s also why they make me happy. I suppose if people painted them in bright colours, they’d be more accepting of them, but that would rob them of all their oppressive charm!
As I believe in historic preservation, and as the best Brutalist buildings have interesting sculptural forms, I think we should save the finest examples and level to the ground the dreariest, most soul-destroying ones (which is most of them). We should not forget that, once, we built this way — if for no other reason than to insure that we never do it again.
As in every architectural style,there are good and not so good examples. As this documentary states the style really involved civic architecture as well as postwar modernism. I think Brutalist benefitted from sculptural elements that certainly had an elevated beauty. Unfortunately because it was an affordable way of creating buildings, there was skimming on quality of the construction at times. I’m from Montreal, my city went through a massive 60s boom of concrete structures. Unfortunately when the Italian mafia is involved with the business of concrete, you have structures that will fall over in 30 years. However, some of the most architecturally, interesting and beautiful buildings in my city are of the brutalist modernist style.
I can’t stand that architecture! It’s depressing, institutional, drab, and bleak! I can see how this architecture can be popular today becuase everything is very Maoist, which reflects contemporary bandwagon ideology. Minimalism, buildings painted charcoal gray or black, lifeless interiors with no warmth. these are some of the words that have become important in relation to contemporary society. So therefore, it makes sense, and its unsurprising that Brutalism is being embraced In this society, a society which Maoist living, and Orwellian society is considered positive and admired.
Brutalism (well executed) is a tool to provoke man-made greatness again. Nowadays designs are built with ready-made fabrication materials that lack human value in the making and a lack of social civic in the result, I think it ought to be recalled the brutalism zeitgeist again to prevent those disruptive phenomena.
I think a lot of the derision for brutalism comes from the fact that it’s just simply a difficult style to do well. Put a top-notch architect on the project and they’ll give you gold. Put a lesser one on the project and you’ll get depressing or ugly. Do the same with a glass-box project and the worst you’ll get is something inoffensive.
Concrete doesn’t age well. To answer this, let us first make a short list of old and new building materials: Old: \\——– * Limestone * Marble * Lime concrete * Clay fired bricks * ceramic tiles * Slates * Sandstone * Granite New \\—— * Portland cement concrete * Steel Reinforced concrete * Reconstructed stone * Pre-cast concrete * Sandlime bricks * Stainless steel * Aluminum * Laminated plastics All the materials on the bottom list,so because they are cheaper in the short-term. There is little doubt that, quite apart from their appearance and cheapness, the materials at the bottom of the list have a shorter lifespan than those at the top. The materials on top have a near infinite shelf life…..Hope Bagenal, headed the UK’s Building Research station……points out; the best building materials are practically inert and last long against weather, geo-chemical processes, whereas the great defect of all modern materials is their high coefficient of expansion. This means that their seasonal and diurnal expansion and contraction or freeze/thaw cycles; is such that expansion joints are essential. Even a modern brick wall has to have expansion joints every 30 feet. This in turn breaks up the monolithic nature of any structure into little isolated blocks with expansion joints. The weathering and attrition at these joints is an obvious long-term weakness, whereas a traditionally built structure has none of these problems because the matrix is lime instead of cement. Think of the Pantheon in Rome, built in brick and lime mortar.
Now I can see if people want to save something like the Barbican, but I had to live with the cheap, quick style of brutalism that was foisted on a lot of poorer areas in my country. Having a brutalist police station, city centre, or housing block drains the soul. The buildings are heavy, oppressive and especially in the winter look so damn depressing – water stains, lack of light, grey on grey on grey… The centre of the village where I went to school was dominated by a brutalist shopping district. It was awful, and dragged the place down. It became a magnet for drug addicts, crime and always stank of urine. It was demolished a few years ago and it has made such a difference to the place. Just having sunlight and plants and colour has really revitalised the place. Having had to live with it in my formative years, I now have a visceral dislike of Brutalism. If you want to save a few examples as part of architectural history so be it, but the new found romanticism about it seems to be centred on only the best examples, the cultural landmarks that had a ton of money poured into them. I would not weep if the vast majority of brutalist structures were gone.
A lot of government and cultural buildings here in Manila have this type of architecture. Cultural center of the Philippines, Manila film center, Philippines international convention center, Banko Sentral (Central bank), Manila folk arts theater. And most were build under dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos (father of the current president).
I live in Austria and we have many brutalist buildings dating back to when the socialist build them back in the days. I grew up in a block like the one you showed in the article. I love this building style and I think it shows honesty, love and detail in their concrete style. It was a hopeful look into the future to come, trying to embrace the futuristic mindset and the hopefulness that is missing today.
San Francisco has some nice brutalist architecture like: the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption, Donatello Hotel, Westin St. Francis Tower Building, 666 Ellis st, the Hilton at 333 O’Farrell st, the Hilton in Chinatown, the Hyatt Regency, PG&E 8th St. Substation, and the Glen Park BART Station (most BART stations to be honest) and a ton more.
Brutalism has but two styles. The government style which tries to scream ‘me powerful’ don’t dare dissent. The other style is the insignifigance style. The you are but a number and insignificant do as you are told style. It is also an eyesore and butt ugly. Then again I am in the modern art offends me school so that is no surprise.
There are great brutalist designs and there are, uh, less-great brutalist designs, as there are great and less-great renditions of any given architectural style. I think brutalism has its gems. It does bother me when owners decide to paint over the exposed concrete or reface the facades. There’s something refreshing and simple about untarnished, pure concrete forms.
My impression of Brutalism having been surrounded by such structures growing up in the uk, is that it’s purpose is to crush the human spirit. There is nothing Human about them in terms of scale or aesthetics, which may be linked to the lack of maintenance and care seen in many buildings. Buildings express an apathy to things human. In return humans express an apathy to the buildings. It to me a perfect example of “buildings designed by people who don’t have to live or work in them”
The moving visual effect at 0:54 display an understandable representation of what brutalism in architecture is represented as. I now imagine the correlation of hard and deeply processed materials that come from within the Earth, being stacked on top of the earth; glorifying innate characteristics of our planet by allowing all to empirically understand what was not previously understood.
I feel that humanity is doing this out of a mysterious collective sense of passive aggression. Angst is creeping in over the decades that maybe the old ideas of progress may not be progress at all. We feel increasingly ugly and uncomfortable because of what we’ve done and are doing to the planet. But we still won’t stop. And so we now subconsciously build ugly, dress ugly, even act ugly to express this feeling 🤔🤨
Several mistakes there. For one, concrete is NOT inexpensive, quiet the opposite. Especially in USA and Canada, where wood is fairly available. Second, Le Corbusier, didn´t introduced brutalism, he was one of the fathers of racionalism and modernism, along with Gropius and Mies Van Der Rohe. And last but not least, Concrete DOES age well, that precisely one of its biggest virtues. It requires very little maintenance, and depending on the addings you use on the mixing of concrete, it can have a very nice and elegant agging process
“Brutalism” does NOT mean brutal. Brutalism is derived from the French word for concrete, without added coatings:- “Beton Brut”. The best architecture and the modern “Brutilism”, is very sensitive, and provides excellent urban outdoor spaces, with whole town design of the space between buildings. The interiors can be as good or poor architecture as any design. eg the complex urban design of the Barbican Estate, inner London, with complexity of parks and squares, and separated pedestrians from polluting, noisy traffic. Not resorting to petty, fake, neo-classical, or neo georgian as was seen as desirable at mid 20th century.
Ok guys. How long until these pedantic architects reinvent classic architecture ? I am sure it is going to happen if it keeps going this way “Oh yeah ? Brutalism was too featurless ? BOOM I am making a bloc of concrete but this time featuring steel/glass paterns, how creative is that ? and then, one will be like “Oh yeah ? Well, I am going to add this detail to the building’s exterior” etc, give it maybe 50 or 100 years, maybe more. By going so eagerly in a direction, they’re going to draw a circle without noticing.
The problem of brutalism is not only the style itself, but the ideology of many of the architects behind it. Le Corbusier was a profound admirer of italian fascism and other collectivist ideologies also like in Nazi-Germany or later in the sovjet union with its communist ideology. The basic idea was “new architecture for the new mankind”, whatever this “new man” will be in future. In its roots this type of architecture is very inhuman, because all inspirations were totalitarian collectivist inhuman ideologies.
I love the architectural aesthetics of dune and bladerunner 2049, if i had all the money in the world i’d have something like that built in the middle of some scenic forrest like the Taiga isolated from civilization on the edge of a rock with it blending into the inside of the structure like that house from Ex Machina, i’d have dimly lit LED’s lining the edges of the connecting walls and ceiling and a massive island kitchen, dystopian architecture for some reason just warms my soul.
In the Philippines, brutalist architecture is associated with a former dictator and his family. Some are designed by now National Artists for Architecture. Locally famous are the buildings in the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex. We also have a love/hate relationship with it. Also, the finish on some of these buildings is coarse-textured and so as they age, the darkening is kinda even all throughout the surface. If that makes sense.
I once heard a story of an old woman who lived in a concrete tower block, she used to live in a row of tenements however the street she lived on along with several neighbouring streets were torn down to make way for a shopping centre and the residents moved into apartment blocks however she was old and infirm and the council had to send someone every day to help her down the stairs. And that leads to my point about brutalist housing it lacks human scale and even suburban housing with it’s overpowering banality is better because the individual homes were built on a scale fit for humans.
Well, at the sight of brutalist architecture, I out of the blue, think of Art Nouveau style of architecture. Two totally different styles, right? Brutalist style maybe best brings out the texture and feel of concrete. Personally, I don’t feel as deeply drawn to brutalist structures as to Art Nouveau ones . When putting them side by side, I am not sure if I can affirm brutalist buildings to be very edgy or trendy or cool. They are not like buildings from a fairy tale movie, at least.. hehe ..🙂 Some people may feel that way.. Each to their own. Some of them on your article even look way too monstrous for my liking, too overwhelming as though they were unassailable fortresses. But I know the style is also a reflection on the post war years, and so those massive, stripped- down constructions have naturally occupied many cities. That’s fine and no problem, I guess. Thank you..☺
i love brutalism i mean seriously how can you look at this giant, monolithic obviously very strong, sturdy and well-designed concrete fortress and not appreciate the efficient and defensive values? yea they have some cultural meaning too or something but i would take a fortress over a mansion just like anyone with an interest in self-preservation would unless you’re talking about a medieval fortress in which case fuck no those are ancient garbage im talking about a nice large functional concrete fortress
In Glasgow in Scotland back in the 90’s there was a housing project with tall brutalist buildings and it was a horrible place, the place was split in two with 2 big underpasses that where lit up with yellow lights covered n graffiti and at night people would fight in and around it. The place would look like a labyrinth in places with certain passageways condemned and would lead to literally nowhere, there where murders almost weekly and stabbings everyday the entire vibe the place gave off was hostile and the design of the buildings 100% amplified that feeling.
I do see why people view it as an eyesore. I am a very color loving person, so I’d rather see a colorful world instead of a monochrome one. And brutalism reminds me of the decline of the natural world, and the rise of human control over everything. It just gives me bad vibes 🤷♀️ I prefer seeing architecture that tries to integrate nature, not push it away. That doesn’t mean I hate ALL of it
The thing about preserving buildings is that you end up with so many buildings in such an eclectic assortment of styles in one urban space that you end up with an incoherent mess s there’s certainly nothing Feng Shui about it. Brutalist buildings had a purpose to serve and it’s been fulfilled, we can replace them with buildings that are a little more sympathetic to each other, like some Edwardian-style buildings.
Brutalist buildings was never supposed to be beautiful, they were supposed to be cheap. They are more than sad reminder of what buildings were lost during the war time. When someone like Bald and Bankrupt walks on Estonian streets admiring these buildings, I would love to stop him to remind what was there before. What was there before was beautiful and people lost their lives on those streets. What was build after was something like giant middle finger or mans genitalia. Yes, it was brutal.
You like the the brutalist architecture huh the idea is to make everything like a concrete bunker as much as physically possible to make everybody feel like they’re basically living in a combat zone and then right at the center of everything you have this shiny awesome phallic symbol thats extremely curved and colorful… oh yeah bro it just paints a type of picture in the mind Makes you wanna wear Adidas and shoot aks into the air in an act of sheer desperation, knowing you’ll never be anywhere close to the nameless workers that built your bloc It’s so easy to build houses this way too like all you have to do is figure the interior dimensions and make like basically an outer wall of corrugated steel fill up the inside with wet sand and then you just pour concrete into the exoskeleton part and then you can pour more concrete once it’s sets on the roof and then let that set with rebar in between everything and you come in later and dig out all the sand and then you got like a one-story Block House basically if you want to do a doorway you just do like a wooden frame cut out in the corrugated steel so that the concrete doesn’t go there or if you want to do a second story you just put a f**** wooden box right through the concrete into the f**** sand below and there’s just a gaping hole there and then you just build f**** stairs up there which could be done out of concrete it’s all just cast like cast steel is cast
2:56 As a French living in Marseille, I can tell you that the Unité d’Habitation is also called La Cité Radieuse (the radiant city) and it’s a really unique building that works as a city with a school inside it, shops, municipal pools… It’s a great exemple of Brutalism and it’s visitable during special days.
Generally speaking the aesthetic appeal of anything man-made is proportional to the degree of individual craftsmanship apparent ; from a beautifully illustrated book to a cathedral. Concrete structures are machine built and in no way reflect human artistry, individuality or endeavour but rather “Progress and Egalitarianism”- ghastly.
Some examples of Brutalism are ugly as hell, some have their beauty. Not easy for preservation to decide which ones should be demolished and which ones should be preserved. When I look at Brutalist buildings as a photographer, I can appreciate them. But when I look at them as someone who has to live around (or in) them, I find them mostly ugly and unfriendly (with some exceptions).
Yeah brutalism is not good, it’s unhealthy for human health, knowing that we are deliberately wasting and designing ugly and depressing architecture. Which we shouldn’t cause it’s a choice. Beauty in our cities do matter if only people thought critically about how their cities should look instead of letting a party of madness into creating ugly and weird looking structures.
I think it makes for very ugly skyscrapers. But there’s a brutalist library — and a 9-story civic building, and a mall, in my town — all of which are geometric, interesting, and inviting, like futuristic sand castles. Love those buildings. Really cool. I admire the democratism and honesty of brutalism. I mean — it’s a style, with good examples and terrible ones.
The post-war go-to architecture. A problem with all that concrete is that it accumulates watermarks, rust, moss, soot and other dirt, either more quickly or more prominently. Not my favourite style, but it has something of its own. Also, it lets other architectural styles shine. Please do a Googie article!