
Melancholy of obsolete futures: on Soviet Brutalism - prismatic
https://thecritic.co.uk/melancholy-of-obsolete-futures/
======
airstrike
My issue with Brutalism is that it seems to evoke a sense of helplessness of
the individual against the sheer size of the State. No wonder it was so
popular in totalitarian regimes.

I often think of Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. A city literally built in
the middle of nowhere and with virtually no sidewalks, making it incredibly
costly for individuals to reach it and organize themselves to protest against
the government. Its streets _literally have no name_ ⁰. Imagine living on SHS
W2 or SEN L1!

I was raised to love Oscar Niemeyer, but nowadays I can't help wishing he
chose to lend his beautiful creativity to something other than architecture.

__________

0\. [https://www.quora.com/How-do-people-living-in-Brasilia-
refer...](https://www.quora.com/How-do-people-living-in-Brasilia-refer-to-
their-city-streets)

~~~
thethethethe
> My issue with Brutalism is that it seems to evoke a sense of helplessness of
> the individual against the sheer size of the State. No wonder it was so
> popular in totalitarian regimes.

You have this backwards. Brutalism was popular in the Soviet Union because it
is austere, symbolizing equality and utilitarianism. Back in the early days,
brutalism was actually seen as progressive. It’s association with
totalitarianism is a result of western propaganda and the failures of the
soviet bureaucracy.

> I often think of Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. A city literally built in
> the middle of nowhere and with virtually no sidewalks, making it incredibly
> costly for individuals to reach it and organize themselves to protest
> against the government. Its streets literally have no name⁰. Imagine living
> on SHS W2 or SEN L1!

Basically none of this is related to brutalism. What you are describing is a
failed attempt at new urbansim. Brasilia is divided into "superblocks", which
are essentially self-contained communities with all required services in the
center. This design was similar to soviet urban planning at the time, though
the superblocks were much bigger (and less successful) in Brasilia. This
design ultimately resulted in large boulevards and car centric transportation,
defeating its initial goals

~~~
airstrike
> ou have this backwards. Brutalism was popular in the Soviet Union because it
> is austere, symbolizing equality and utilitarianism.

I don't disagree it's purported to be egalitarian, but to me that's just a
codeword for suppressing individual expression as I've said elsewhere.

And utilitarianism at the expense of beauty makes for terribly sad creations.

I'm on Roger Scruton's side on this one.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHw4MMEnmpc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHw4MMEnmpc)

~~~
rirarobo
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder though.

Some people might say that various religious monuments remind them of how that
religion suppresses individual expression. On the other hand, the same might
be said about certain architecture in say Japan, that it evokes a sense of
collectivism. Yet some people will find that beautiful while others might find
it stifling.

I would guess that the vast majority of people have never heard of
"Brutalism", and if you were to show them examples there would be a wide range
of responses. How many people could say whether something was influenced more
by Brutalism vs Modernism vs Minimalism?

Take the Guggenheim. It was not well received when first revealed, but is now
considered a prime example of Modernism, and even Brutalism, though I expect
many everyday people would be still divided on whether it's beautiful or not.

Beauty is subjective and multidimensional, so when you say " utilitarianism at
the expense of beauty", what I hear is "utilitarianism at the expense of a
particular aesthetic of my preference."

An example that many people would be familiar with is IKEA. Yes, some people
do find the Modernism of IKEA to be sad or lifeless, but others find pleasure
in the simplicity and clever functionality.

I haven't even discussed how cultural and historical contexts influence these
perceptions, and how that will differ depending on the audience. I think this
plays a significant role in coloring our judgments of Brutalism.

Anyway, my point is just that it's not so simple, people define and find
beauty in many different ways.

------
michaelchisari
I've always hated brutalism, but one look at green brutalism, which
intersperses brutalist architecture with trees, foliage, plants and overgrowth
and I fell in love.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=green+brutalism](https://www.google.com/search?q=green+brutalism)

The greenery makes it look more like a mountain and less like a building. It
tempers the coldness and abstraction of brutalism with the beauty of the
natural environment.

~~~
Nasrudith
I can't help but think long term it is a ton of added maintenance costs as
pretty as it may look in the moment. Ivy clinging to your stucco walls is not
a good thing iconic as the look may be.

------
m0llusk
It can make sense to remove art from its context, but romanticizing Soviet
underground stations should always involve some humility to the sacrifice
involved. Those stations cost phenomenal amounts at a time when much of the
population was starving. The laborers that built them were pushed mercilessly,
suffered terribly, and many died. To anyone who understands how those
structures came to be they must be seen as monuments to human folly and
misery.

~~~
izacus
This is equivalent to saying "We need to always mention that americans abused
and raped black slaves when US constitution was written, so we should never
talk about it without talking about slavery."

It's trite, humiliating and shows your lack of knowlege beyond what is,
essentially, western propaganda tropes. Most of those weren't built by
starving people and it's humiliating to the amazing architects and builders of
these buildings to nullify their achievements like this. Please don't post
these insulting messages unless your knowledge of history and sorrounding
context of the achievements actually goes beyond single page textbook of a
UK/US.

~~~
baybal2
> This is equivalent to saying "We need to always mention that americans
> abused and raped black slaves when US constitution was written, so we should
> never talk about it without talking about slavery."

So... you think you don't have too?

~~~
CodeMage
We shouldn't have to, no. Ask yourself why you think it should be _necessary_
to always explicitly talk about slavery whenever we discuss the US
constitution.

Think about it this way: you don't rehash the rules of football (or "soccer",
if you're from the US) every time you talk about a match. You don't go into
the history of how those rules came to be what they are now. It's all part of
the context and you only revisit that context when there's a reason to do so.

The relationship of slavery and the US constitution _should_ be part of the
context _everyone_ is aware of. That means it should be part of education
everyone receives. Thinking that it needs explicit mention in every discussion
of the constitution implies a belief that most people aren't aware of the
context, and that is a problem that needs a proper solution.

~~~
cesarb
> The relationship of slavery and the US constitution should be part of the
> context everyone is aware of. That means it should be part of education
> everyone receives.

Why should someone in for instance Brazil know of these details of the USA
history? The context for the Brazilian constitutions is part of the education
everyone receives here in Brazil, but I don't recall learning anything about
the USA constitution in school. Don't forget that HN has an international
audience.

~~~
CodeMage
That's a very interesting question! I think it shifts the goalposts a bit from
what I've originally replied to, but I say that as a good thing, because it
makes the discussion even more interesting and it allows me to better explain
what I believe.

I believe that we should live in a society with much better education. An
essential ingredient of that education -- _much_ more important than the mere
learning of facts -- is the understanding of how to approach a discussion, how
to think logically, how to question things, etc. A crucial element of that
"essential ingredient" is the understanding of the importance of context and
of being informed.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that someone in Brazil should be taught, as
part of their standard education, about the US constitution. But that puts the
onus on them to get informed about the topic of the discussion before jumping
into a discussion of it. And when participating in such a discussion, they
should also probably indicate that they might not have the same understanding
of the context that everyone else might have.

In short, I believe that we should all receive the education that teaches us
not only the relevant context of the things we are expected to be dealing with
in the future, but also that it's our responsibility to be informed when
participating in discussions.

------
zanderz
I recently learned that the word brutalism comes not from the imposing stature
of the structures but from the French term for raw concrete: béton brut.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9ton_brut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9ton_brut)

------
vidarh
It's an odd title; most of the article talks about books that are not focused
on Brutalism, but on a range of styles of which brutalism appears to make up a
limited part.

E.g. it references "Imagine Moscow", but Stalin forcefully rejected Le
Corbusier twice, and Moscow was never re-imagined in a brutalist manner in
Moscow, but possibly in Brasilia (Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse[1] was
inspired by his plans for Moscow, and Brasilia was designed to incorporate
aspects of Ville Radieuse). I'm sure there are interesting examples of
brutalism in Moscow (though most of the brutalism in Russia are down to
Khrushchyovka [2]), but they postdates the era the book is about, and the most
prominent design ideas for Moscow at the time were not brutalist.

"Consumer Culture Landscapes in Socialist Yugoslavia" seems to focus on the
work of Zivorad Jankovic, much of which isn't brutalist either.

Lastly it references "Soviet Metro Stations", but most of them are not
brutalist at all - certainly not the most famous examples.

If it wasn't for numerous references to brutalism in the text, I'd have
assumed this was an editor messing around, but I'm not convinced the author of
this piece knows what brutalism is. The books might well be interesting,
though, but when the article tries to shoehorn them into a box they don't
appear to fit in, it makes it hard to tell. It'd be nice if the author tried
harder to describe the books in more detail rather than try to invent his own
narrative around it.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville_Radieuse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville_Radieuse)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka)

------
Muromec
Article has a weird claim about Kyiv metro and decommunisation. Kyiv metro
stations are full of advertising eysores, that's true, but that predated
decomunnisation laws by few decades. Actual decommunisation mostly affected
station names (one can't have anything named after Lenin or his boys in Kyiv),
removal of occasional scicle-and-hammer here and there and few major
replacements. In some places communism-related imagenary was replaced with
something more neutral and matching the style of the station, in others
removed completely [0].

[0] [http://www.berlogos.ru/article/dekommunizatsiya-kievskogo-
me...](http://www.berlogos.ru/article/dekommunizatsiya-kievskogo-
metropolitena/)

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
For a sneak peek into some of the most unexpectedly fascinating architecture
in the Soviet Union (some brutalist, some very much not so), don't miss Soviet
Bus Stops: [http://herwigphoto.com/soviet-bus-
stops/](http://herwigphoto.com/soviet-bus-stops/)

------
smileypete
Best description I've come across of architecture like this is 'ego driven
utopia'...

------
hevelvarik
Hardest thread to read without the article in HN history

