
Brutalism is Back - tintinnabula
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/t-magazine/design/brutalist-architecture-revival.html
======
niftich
I have a few issues with this article. Most notably, it doesn't prove that
brutalism is back at all; it just admits that the style is no longer
universally disliked by the public -- perhaps (I'm speculating) out of
nostalgia, perhaps out of wistful remorse for having judged it too harshly, or
perhaps by the fact that it's no longer the style associated with government
intervention, with homogeneity, with willful disregard for social convention.

I also disagree with the notion expressed midway through the article that
brutalism was about "an uncompromising desire to tell it like it is". In fact,
most brutalism that I'm familiar with deliberately provokes by its unnatural
(or even top-heavy) massing, sheer vertical lines, and dominance of concrete
over other materials as a deliberate choice. The claim reads as disingenuous
since Le Corbusier used structures featuring _beton brut_ \-- raw, exposed
concrete -- which is where the term _brutalism_ originates. It was very much
an aesthetic choice, intentionally designed to be provocative.

As an aside, to me, the Washington DC Metro [1] represents the best of
brutalism -- a functional design that, albeit stark, is pleasing to the eye
solely as an accident of its function. It expresses the sheer human grandeur
-- in this case, tunneling through the earth -- without being visually
offensive.

[1]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/12-07-12...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/12-07-12-wikimania-
wdc-by-RalfR-010.jpg)

~~~
tvanantwerp
Go I hate riding the DC Metro everyday. Maybe it's brutalism at its best, but
it's simply a poor design for a metro system. Contrast with something like
Hong Kong's MTR [1]: brightly lit, different colored walls so you can visually
distinguish stations, and a glass wall between passengers and trains to
prevent falls/suicides. DC Metro _may_ be grand, but it's just not smart.

As for the rest of DC's brutalist architecture, this piece sums up a lot of my
feelings: [https://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/the-7-most-
heinously-u...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/the-7-most-heinously-
ugly-government-buildings-in-washington)

[1]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/MTR_Nort...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/MTR_North_Point_Station_Platform.jpg)

~~~
lobster_johnson
On the other hand, compared to the NYC subway, the DC metro is like stepping
into the future. (Roomy! Quiet! Escalators! Handicap-accessible! It's a modern
marvel, I say.) I'd take the brutalism of the DC metro over NYC any day.

~~~
rayiner
To be fair, the DC metro was built more than 70 years after the New York
subway.

~~~
lobster_johnson
There are much older subways (London, Paris and Madrid come to mind) that are
as large and have managed to stay modern, albeit with slightly fewer stations
(but longer networks).

The NYC is subway is old, but it's not like they haven't had any time to work
on it. From what I've read, it's mostly attributable to mismanagement at the
MTA — misdirected funds, union squabbles, lack of political will, lack of
imagination, outright corruption.

NYC is admittedly extremely time-consuming (and therefore expensive) to dig,
but all the things that could have modernized the subway and made more it
convenient and accessible wouldn't require digging more tunnels.

The other systemic problems — lack of modern signaling, lack of parallel
tunnels — are harder and more expensive to solve, especially without
disrupting commuters.

~~~
RockyMcNuts
ummh... have you ever been on any of those subways?

Paris is a marvel for its density and well-planned routes. But some of the
lines are more like underground light rail compared to e.g. the Lexington
line, which on its own carries like 1/3 of the passengers of Paris or London.

The London Tube trains I've been on felt like a subway for midgets compared to
the 10-foot wide BMT trains. They stop running at night. One of the only times
I've missed a flight was due to a London Tube delay.

The new Chinese subways really put the US to shame, quiet, double glass doors,
video screens everywhere, cell phones work everywhere, very cheap, very dense
and very crowded.

The NY subway is pretty reliable and fast. Apps like Moovit and Citymapper
make it pretty easy to get where you want as quickly as possible. Train Time
coverage and wifi coverage could be better, the latter is improving. It could
be nicer but all I can say is if you think the New York subway is bad now, you
should have tried it in the 70s.

Edit: I'd add that an Oyster-type payment system would be nice. Also, a couple
of MTA alumni have led systems in London, Hong Kong, Toronto, other cities, so
NY is probably not at the very bottom in best practices. Bottom line is you
can get anywhere quickly and reliably at all hours, if not always in luxurious
style, and you don't need a car to live here. So I'll take it, until your
driverless taxi can deal with NY traffic and get there faster.

~~~
ucaetano
Paris has well-planned routes? Not at all! Take line 12 for example, a
crooked, slow line with stations sometimes a single block apart.

There are no escalators or elevators except for a few stations, and the trains
rattle and shake as much as NYC. Not to mention the narrow trains running on
standard gauge, created like that on purpose so the federal government
wouldn't take it over and run their own trains.

Line 14 is the only one which would qualify as a modern transportation system.

~~~
RockyMcNuts
anywhere you go in Paris, you're a few minutes walk from a métro station...NYC
subway mostly goes down main transportation axes, there are pretty big deserts
where you have a very long walk or take a bus to the subway, even in Manhattan
but especially in outer boroughs.

------
mdasen
Part of the problem is that concrete doesn't age well. The building might
start as looking ok, but quickly becomes discolored. It's worsened by the fact
that many of the buildings made no accommodation for how they wouldn't allow
water to just drip and discolor them even worse.

The article talks about them belonging to "an era of muscular, public-minded
development". Later, it says, "Brutalism wasn’t fully popular with a broad
public, whose members were never convinced that awe-inspiring concrete
dourness was what society was truly missing, and it ultimately depended on the
good will of sympathetic planners". So, actually, it harkens back to an era
when politicians and planners felt that they didn't need to be accountable.

The worst part of the article is when it argues, "THERE’S NO QUESTION that
Brutalism looks exceedingly cool. [author's emphasis]". I think most of the
broad public would disagree - and the article basically says that. Brutalism
is just gross and dirty to me. There's nothing interesting or cool about it
for me. Brutalism means putting a lot of money into something that's crappy.
As rayiner points out
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12688217](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12688217)),
it isn't honest like the article portrays it as. The buildings are often
needlessly complicated or purposely ugly.

~~~
usrusr
Done right, aging concrete can be very beautiful. It blends with nature,
slowly taking up color and texture of natural rock. Unfortunately, the "doing
it right" has to happen at the drawing board, where people tend to picture
pristine surfaces of perfectly even coloring. There, they are easily tempted
to go for those minimalist shapes that exaggerate shinyness when new (that's
why people go for that look) as much as raggedness when not. The difference
between patina and grit happens before building even starts.

If I had a few man-decades of developer time to burn, without any chance of
ever seeing adequate return, my dream software project would be a tool that
analyzes architectural model data, simulates aging and creates an "aging
forecast" version ready for rendering. This could help architects and clients
to avoid badly aging designs if they choose to factor that into their
decisions. Or at least it could generally promote the idea that sustainable is
not just about day to day energy use but also about long term attractivity .

~~~
ebalit
This seems like a really cool and useful idea. Are you sure it would be that
long to develop a prototype?

~~~
usrusr
I'm sure that it would take me very long, not being an expert in any of the
required skill areas and all that. Seen from afar i identify several key
components of a high quality architectural aging simulation: water/geometry
interaction (most stains seem to be related to differences in water exposure),
some rough thermal simulation (different drying speed, often you see "shadows"
of internal structure on the outside, because the internals influence heat
dissipation and thus drying speed), gathering and refining actual aging
examples for all kinds of surface materials and finally extracting not only
geometry but also surface material information from the input formats you
would want to support. Putting it all together to generate output models or
images would be the smallest part.

A less sophisticated effort might just try to use image based rendering
techniques to normalize before/after photos into flat textures ready to be
used as a learning set for some ML magic. Unfortunately, this would completely
fail at respecting different aging properties of surfaces that look similar
when new. Cleverly alternating between initially similar surfaces could for
example be harnessed to get a clean, minimalistic look when new and expose
some ornaments that distract from unintended unevenness later.

This isn't a completely theoretical idea by the way: a ca 2005 subway station
here that used to get heavily criticised for its bland white walls is slowly
starting to expose fascinating watermark-like images embedded in the texture
of the walls, consisting of cleverly modulated ribs that seemed perfectly
uniform when new.

------
rayiner
There was never anything particularly functional or honest about brutalist
architecture. A Mies van der Rohe skyscraper is functional and honest: not
much more than the structural steel necessary to keep the thing upright and
the glass windows necessary to let in light for the humans inside.

Compare with monstrosities like the old Prentice hospital in Chicago:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prentice_Women%27s_Hospital_Bu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prentice_Women%27s_Hospital_Building#/media/File:Prentice_Hospital_1.jpg).
Nothing functional about the tiny windows, or weirdly-shaped circular interior
spaces, or wrapping the whole thing in a material (concrete) that doesn't hold
up well to a snowy climate. Just architectural wankery.

~~~
chao-
I agree overall, but am curious: Having only briefly lived in colder climes,
what about concrete doesn't hold up well in snow?

~~~
guyzero
Water penetrates the surface causing the surface of the concrete to flake off
and eventually rusts the encased rebar which expands as it rusts which
eventually cracks the concrete from within.

The Gardiner Expressway in Toronto is a good example of this - it seems as
it's permanently under refurbishment.

------
nealrs
The article totally skips over the fact that brutalism comes from French -
Béton brut means concrete.

There is nothing 'brutal' or 'brutalizing' about brutalist architecture. I
know I'm being a bit pedantic, but words matter. Right?

~~~
at-fates-hands
Not sure how they did that tbh. You'd think they'd take five minutes and do a
Google search:

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

 _The term originates from the French word for "raw" in the term used by Le
Corbusier to describe his choice of material béton brut (raw concrete).[1][2]
British architectural critic Reyner Banham adapted the term into "brutalism"
(originally "New Brutalism") to identify the emerging style._

The very first paragraph of the article is completely wrong:

 _it was a term of abuse for the work of architects whose buildings confronted
their users — brutalized them — with hulking, piled-up slabs of raw,
unfinished concrete. These same architects, centered on the British couple
Alison and Peter Smithson, enthusiastically took up Brutalism as the name for
their movement with a kind of pride, as if to say: That’s right, we are
brutal. We do want to shove your face in cement._

This is depressing to think about this revisionist history. This was apart of
the _modern architectural_ movement of the 20th century, not some sort of
audacious idea of an your face art movement.

Just. . .so. . .wrong on so many levels

~~~
vilhelm_s
I feel this claim, that the term derives from "raw", seems super suspicious.
It is repeated very often, but I've never seen any scholarly analysis of where
the word comes from. If you look at the Wikipedia talk page, you'll find
people pointing out that that etymology doesn't seem to make any sense: the
oldest attestations of the word is from a Swedish (rather than French) writer
talking about "nybrutalism", which got borrowed into English as "New
Brutalism". And the building which was described as "nybrutalism" was made of
brick, not concrete.

If you can find any information about how Le Corbusier coined the term and
when, it would be great if you could add it to the Wiki page!

~~~
niftich
He wrote a letter in 1962 to a fellow architect in which he said:

"Beton brut was born at the Unité d'Habitation at Marseilles where there were
80 contractors and such a massacre of concrete that one simply could not dream
of making useful transitions by means of grouting. I decided: let us leave all
that brute. I called it 'beton brute' [bare concrete]. The English immediately
jumped on the piece and treated me (Ronchamp and Monastery of La Tourette) as
'Brutal' \-- beton brutal -- all things considered, the brute is Corbu. They
called that 'the new brutality'. My friends and admirers take me for the brute
of brutal concrete!" [1][2]

[1] [https://f50collective.com/2016/09/19/brutalist-
architecture/](https://f50collective.com/2016/09/19/brutalist-architecture/)

[2]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=b-OUxSelykIC&lpg=PA18&ots=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=b-OUxSelykIC&lpg=PA18&ots=vb60zelHH5&pg=PA19#v=onepage&q&f=false)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Based on that, it sounds like the original inspiration was indeed "raw", but
it was almost immediately tagged as "brutal" in English, and its admirers
knowingly embraced that term. So perhaps the article oversimplifies things,
but the broad strokes seem to be correct.

------
afterburner
Brutalist architecture is objectively wrong. It's terrible. Building design
review boards, take note. It's not back, it died a quick death and we still
see its ugly tombstones littering the landscape.

Brutalist concept models must have looked super cool in miniature form though.
Blown up to life size? Just a lot of flat, ugly, oppressive, senselessly
artless concrete slabs.

~~~
SwellJoe
Compared to what followed, I think I'd pick brutalism. Downtown buildings in
cities that mostly grew up in the 80s and 90s are just boring. When I google
brutalist building images, I'm struck by how wildly they vary. I don't love
them all. But, they've got real personality and originality. Sure, sometimes
it is overblown...big shapes in weird places just for the sake of showing off.

I find architecture that slaps old forms onto new buildings to be...gross.
There's a couple of skyscrapers just outside of Houston, for example, with
fucking red shingles on it, like it's an adobe house in the desert or or
something. So much architecture glues on a bunch of columns, ornamental
lintels, fancy molding, etc. When placed on a structure that is huge,
particularly one that is much taller than it is wide, they look ridiculous.

I think there are good buildings that were built in almost every era; but,
some eras are less ambitious than others. Brutalism was, at least, ambitious.
I think there's a reason so much scifi and futurist imaginings feature
brutalist architecture. It is an architecture that screams "there are no
limits to what we can build!" I think that's pretty cool.

It's all subjective, of course, and we all have our preferences. But, calling
it "objectively wrong" seems hard to defend. It is only objectively wrong if
it fails to function as a building for people to live or work in. If it leaks,
if it falls down, if it is difficult to heat and cool, if it inaccessible to
the people who need to use the building. Those are ways to measure
architectural wrongness objectively. It's safe to say that some brutalist
buildings failed to live up to their purpose, but that's true of many
architectural projects. Having the style fall out of fashion, due to a
reactionary response to the new and very different, and the buildings fall
into disrepair because of it, is not really the fault of the architecture. Old
buildings get renovated every 20-30 years, or they stop being relevant. This
is true of even iconic buildings like the Empire State building.

Anyway, I quite like brutalist architecture; I don't mean I like it with no
discrimination. I still just buildings on their own merit and being in the
right style doesn't mean I'll like it, any more than me saying I really love
punk rock means I would ever listen to Green Day or Bad Religion. But, there
are brutalist buildings that I find beautiful. And, a lot of stuff that
followed that I find horrible.

~~~
afterburner
Saying "objectively" is strong language, yes. But I think that if a building
fails in its aesthetic, or at least at blending in if it's not going to be
aesthetically pleasing, then no matter how functionally fine it is, it's a
failure. If all we cared about was function, we'd build ugly boxes everywhere.
Oh wait, that's practically brutalism anyways. Every brutalist building I've
had the displeasure to walk around or be in has been oppressive, and ugly. The
buildings we use shouldn't be oppressive and ugly, because we have to use
them. If it was _only_ a piece of art, then I can see the worth in evoking
those emotions. But I have to live with the damn thing day in and day out,
inside it, not just check it out in a gallery in miniature.

And there is no reason at all to restrict yourself to architecture after
brutalism. The Romans figured it out. The architects of the art deco era
figured it out. Those ideas are still valid, they still make for beautiful
buildings, and we should reuse good ideas because, again, we have to live with
the damn things, day in and day out. We can pick and choose what few ideas
were good since then and also include them. Prevailing construction techniques
might not always allow for it, but we should try.

But some ideas, like brutalist architecture, are a failure, and should never
be re-used. I'd rather get a bland design in almost any other style than a
brutalist design.

That said, feel free to post some examples of your favourite brutalist
architecture, maybe I overlooked something. I'll only be judging them from
pictures, which is entirely different than actually seeing the thing in person
and having to deal with it; the utter bland enormity and lack of detail gets
much reduced when shrunk down to a screen, or student model. But it's
something.

You could probably save most brutalist structures by covering them in
beautiful murals. Then at least the vast expanses of no detail at all works to
your advantage as a convenient canvas. The Bierpinsel in Berlin is not a bad
effort in this regard: [http://berlin.citysegwaytours.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/20...](http://berlin.citysegwaytours.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/BP-CyclingSeries2.jpg)

~~~
taejavu
Saying "objective" isn't just strong language, it completely invalidates any
claim you're trying to make. You're objectively wrong.

Personally, I adore the brutalist aesthetic, for example, everything in this
photo:
[http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/5356556-3x2-940x627.jpg](http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/5356556-3x2-940x627.jpg)

Now I'm sure you'll hate it, and that's not because you've overlooked
something, but because we have different tastes, ie, it's subjective.

~~~
wtbob
> Personally, I adore the brutalist aesthetic, for example, everything in this
> photo:
> [http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/5356556-3x2-940x627.jpg](http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/5356556-3x2-940x627.jpg)

I think that anyone who prefers that to
[https://www.rhodes.edu/sites/default/files/u321/About%20Rhod...](https://www.rhodes.edu/sites/default/files/u321/About%20Rhodes_Our%20Campus.jpg)
is objectively wrong, in the same sense that someone who thinks Steve Buscemi
is more handsome than George Clooney is objectively wrong.

With people, being a good person can be more important than looks; with
buildings, being well-formed can also outweigh looks. But that, again, is
where brutalism tends to fall down: unlike traditional architecture, it tends
_not_ to work on the level of the individual human being. It doesn't
prioritise the experience of those inhabiting it, but rather the experience of
those viewing it (it is, in that respect, 'arch'), nor those who must maintain
it for its inhabitants. It's not situated to receive natural light and heat,
but rather to receive natural and artificial light to make an interesting play
of shadow in photographs. It's not full of little rooms and cubbyholes and
shelves, because those wouldn't look as neat in a model. It's not full of
decoration and ornament, moulding and waistcoating, glasswork and patterns of
colour to delight the eye over decades, in part because those wouldn't show up
in the model and in part because its designers simply don't care.

Brutalist architecture is, in the end, a boot stamping on a human face,
forever.

~~~
taejavu
You clearly do not understand what objective means.

Edit: You're using objective for emphasis, in the same way people use the word
"literally", when they don't really mean it literally. There is no
"objectively" right or wrong when it comes to matters of opinion or taste,
they're by definition subjective. I'm shocked I have to spell this out for
you.

~~~
wtbob
> You clearly do not understand what objective means.

No, I'm saying that your taste is objectively wrong, 'in the same sense that
someone who thinks Steve Buscemi is more handsome than George Clooney is
objectively wrong.' He's simply _not_ (which says, of course, nothing about
his value as an actor or a man, just about his value as a model).

Tastes can be wrong. Brutalism is wrong; objectively wrong: it denies life and
organic beauty (the only beauty that can exist, because we are living
creatures). Some things are indeed matters of taste, but others are not. If
one writes the number which consists of adding unity to unity as 2 or II or ٢
or २ or ꤂ or 𐒢 doesn't really matter, but if one writes it as PA͉I͓͍͇͜N̵
̗̻̗p̴̻͙͚͇̳̹ͅa̦i҉̥̫̥͓n̖̭ ̼͕D̻̤̘̮̼̣͜E̴͇̦̟͚͚A̞͇T̴͎̮͔̣͔H̟̻
̩̥͕̯͙̘D̶̳̞̘͇̠̳̦e̳̥̖̺̯̺s̤̰̬̺t́r̗̼̳u̲͉͎̩̱c̩̬̮̣̫̭͇͟ţ͉̝i̫̝o̗̞̫n̟̘̹̥̖
̞̝P̪A͓̞͍̭ͅI͚̲̬͙Ṉ̫͉̥ then yes, one is wrong.

~~~
taejavu
You clearly do not understand what objective means.

~~~
saintzozo
He is clearly highly literate.

For a similar argument that doesn't make use of the word 'objective', see
[http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html)

------
verisimilitude
I spent four awful, expensive years becoming a dentist in a brutalist building
that began its life with the name "Health Sciences Unit A". Christ, what a
mess that building was.

The ugliness goes away after a while, the ugliness you get used to, the
ugliness is a matter of opinion. What didn't go away, what wasn't a matter of
opinion, though, was the utter disregard for what James Howard Kunstler calls
"human scale". The walls of this building ran, STRAIGHT UP without
interruption for 15 stories from the plaza outside of it. You couldn't sit
next to it, get in it, see inside of it, or shelter under it. You COULD walk a
half block away and sit in a nice park. But the building stood in disregard of
and negligence to the humans attempting to use it.

Of course, I'm only just parroting the ideas of Kunstler, which you can read
or watch here:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_subu...](http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia/transcript?language=en)

------
devilsavocado
Brutalism came and went fairly quickly as an architectural trend. I feel like
it never had much opportunity to develop. As a result, for every great example
of brutalist architecture today you can point to 10 others that really are
eye-sores. Many Canadian University campuses provide good examples of this:
one or two magnificent buildings alongside many others that most people
wouldn't mind tearing down.

~~~
vkou
Are there worse offenders than Simon Fraser University? Because it seems to
have been built to be the perfect middle-ground between open-air prison, sci-
fi military base, and early 20th century involuntary asylum.

~~~
Fricken
Totally Simon Fraser, built around 1965 when Brutalism was still in style.

The University of Alberta has many brutalist classics that went up during the
oil crisis of the late 70s (boom times for Alberta) long after brutalism had
gone out of fashion. Edmonton built some nice brutalist courthouses remniscent
of Boston City Hall, a brutalist art gallery, and brutalist legislature
grounds among other buildings.

I grew up in the north Edmonton suburbs where a brutalist shoopping mall was
erected, it was schockingly out of place. At the back was a terraced park
plaza that was concrete, lifeless and featured a gigantic fountain (that never
worked) that was a labynthine pile of concrete blocks and slabs.

I used to love going there as a kid, it was always desserted because it was so
ugly and it served as a generic backdrop and playground to act out my
dystopian sci-fi fantasies.

The plaza and fountain has since been torn out and replaced by something less
alientating, and now people actually hang out there, which is disappointing.

~~~
ghaff
Wait. Did you just use the word "nice" in a way that was associated with
Boston City Hall, even indirectly? AFAIK (and my own experience) Boston City
Hall is pretty much universally reviled as Soviet architecture set in a wind-
swept brickyard--the latter aspect of which is apparently being addressed to
some degree.

Speaking of Boston, I must admit that the redone, cleaned-up Brutalist modern
wing of the Boston Public Library while, of course nowhere equalling the
original Beaux Arts structure, actually feels open, welcoming, and airy. It
was truly awful previously.

~~~
batiudrami
I've never seen it until today but by a quick Googling I think it looks great?
Though I too would lose the paving (and admittedly I am a fan of the style).

~~~
ghaff
This Internet comment is fairly typical of the general feeling:

This building and space feel like something straight out of a Eastern European
Soviet bloc country. I think Kim Jong-un would be impressed! It's hard to
believe a city so beautiful would chose such ugly architecture for it's
government.

That said, it's exacerbated by the huge bare surrounding expanse in a northern
city that's cold and windy for a significant chunk of the year. There's work
going on at the moment. I'm pretty sure I'll never like the architecture but
with a reasonable exterior space it may be more tolerable.

------
internaut
[http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3641/3546348607_d60d612554_z.j...](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3641/3546348607_d60d612554_z.jpg)

The first thought that struck me when I saw it was "that is a visual
expression of Orwellian thought".

Deep down a majority of people prefer to live in houses that look like this:

[http://media-cache-
ec0.pinimg.com/736x/2e/40/a4/2e40a4bf4e33...](http://media-cache-
ec0.pinimg.com/736x/2e/40/a4/2e40a4bf4e335a68f7c721cf622f7601.jpg)

[http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/74/71/2747107_896ab24...](http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/74/71/2747107_896ab244.jpg)

Do you remember the Shire in the Lord of the Rings? That is a synopsis of what
people feel when they think of 'home'. Honest, humble but well crafted
dwellings affordable by the average hobbit. As master Bilbo is keen to tell
us:

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole,
filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy
hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and
that means comfort."

Brutalism is quite obviously something that came out of Minas Morghul.

[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/enbLZaUyr3s/maxresdefault.jpg](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/enbLZaUyr3s/maxresdefault.jpg)

It is an architectural anti-thesis.

~~~
wtbob
> The first thought that struck me when I saw it was "that is a visual
> expression of Orwellian thought".

Yup, exactly. There is little more care for the inhabitants inside than there
is for the ants, the ivy, the birds, the earthworms which could live on &
around a homier structure. A Brutalist building spares no more thought for its
inhabitants than does an abbatoir for those who enter its confines: they are a
necessary nuisance, but mustn't be permitted to intrude upon the happiness of
the architect anymore than absolutely required.

The Brutalist Le Corbusier famously said that a house is a machine for living
in, but what he really meant is that he thought a home is a machine for
performing intellectual labour, consuming calories, excreting waste and
engaging in other animal activities as required. In other words, he didn't
really know what it means to _live_ ; if he did, then he would have known that
a house is not a machine, but rather a fractally intricate ecosystem, itself
contained within even more intricate interlocking ecosystems.

I don't actually blame him: he lived through the collapse of civilisation that
was the Great War, and then the complete nightmare of the Second World War. He
had seen so much that was great and good ground up in destruction, so much
that had seemed so permanent turned to ash, that I can understand why he
didn't think permanence could be found in an organic, human scale of building
(it's much the same sentiment which fuelled Hitlerism & Stalinism: the old
order had fallen, and the only thing many people thought they could turn to
for strength was raw totalitarianism).

Brutalism is a kind of totalitarianism of architecture, a demand that those
who build, those who inhabit and those who maintain must constantly bend their
wills to the will of the Great Man (the architect), bend without love, without
understanding, without hope, without fear, without joy, just mute, abject
obedience to a cold and uncaring plan.

No thanks. Give me ivy, give me bricks, give me marble, give me dirt and grass
and trees; give me men and women and children; give me sheep and dogs and
horses; give me colours and light and ornament; give me emotion and delight;
give me, in short, _life_.

~~~
internaut
Well said.

------
nickbauman
When it works, it's awesome:

[https://architecturestyles.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/p4040...](https://architecturestyles.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/p4040042web.jpg)

When it doesn't it's horrid:

[https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3752/13117856815_fdfa002c60_b....](https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3752/13117856815_fdfa002c60_b.jpg)

~~~
dsacco
Hah, interesting. I like the second "horrid" photo much more than the first
one. It's much more aesthetically pleasing to me personally, though the first
example seems like more creative thought went into it.

Maybe that's why I'm not an architect though.

~~~
dpkrjb
I liked the second one as well. I think that may be because it's a grey scale
photo. The reality would be a bleak grey/beige windowless monstrosity which
would look more like an industrial site

------
Spooky23
Brutalist buildings exist because they are cheap and allow for architects to
differentiate themselves.

It is almost the physical manifestation of enterprise software: ugly,
minimally functional, uncomfortable to the hapless inhabitants, and impossible
to maintain.

The article references the lament of brutalist fans that the near-universal
hatred of these buildings results in neglect. The reality is that the
prioritizarion of hubris over function translates to buildings that aren't fit
to purpose. Wacky sight lines usually translate to complex roof and gutter
systems, which fail. Poor engineering practice makes HVAC difficult to
deliver, resulting in high costs and poor occupant comfort.

------
seccess
UC Davis has the Social Sciences building (aka the "Death Star"):
[http://www.predock.com/SocialSciences/UC%20Davis.html](http://www.predock.com/SocialSciences/UC%20Davis.html)

While visually striking, it is a labyrinthine nightmare on the inside and
almost impossible to navigate if you have to get to a class.

~~~
sanswork
University of Toronto has Robarts which I think looks like an Evil Wizard
Castle. Or a turkey.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robarts_Library#/media/File:Ro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robarts_Library#/media/File:Robarts_Library.JPG)

~~~
sgift
Perfect headquarter for a secret government authority. I really like the
style, at least from the outside.

------
walrus01
The brutalist MacMillan Blodel building in Vancouver served as a (CGI-
enhanced) Nazi party HQ in Amazon's adaptation of The Man in the High Castle.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=macmillan+bloedel+building&n...](https://www.google.com/search?q=macmillan+bloedel+building&num=100&client=firefox-b&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjgqeO5rNTPAhVS1mMKHVHiAw0Q_AUICSgC)

Most of SFU (Simon Fraser University) is brutalist.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=SFU+brutalist&num=100&client...](https://www.google.com/search?q=SFU+brutalist&num=100&client=firefox-b&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjq8ojIrNTPAhVI1mMKHZ6ABJUQ_AUICCgB&biw=2000&bih=1368&dpr=0.8)

~~~
grogenaut
Man I always thought that was in Argentina. So much scifi shot on that campus.

------
tzakrajs
The soviets had some really awesome brutalist architecture.
[http://weirdrussia.com/2015/04/27/soviet-brutalist-
architect...](http://weirdrussia.com/2015/04/27/soviet-brutalist-architecture-
photographed-by-frederic-chaubin/)

------
Pxtl
Quake 2 was a really good videogame. Let's leave Brutalist architecture in
there where it belongs.

------
pimeys
We have our share of brutalism in Berlin, especially in the west side of the
wall. I really love how some of these buildings look so scary and menacing, so
raw and so rough. Fits to the techno culture.

[http://www.shlur.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/11/fem_2.jpg](http://www.shlur.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/11/fem_2.jpg)

~~~
icebraining
What's with the tubes?

~~~
SwellJoe
They make it look like a battleship. I can't imagine they have
function...which makes them ugly, to me.

------
microcolonel
>When the Smithsons called their work Brutalist or part of a New Brutalism,
the brutality to which they referred had less to do with materials and more to
do with honesty: an uncompromising desire to tell it like it is,
architecturally speaking.

What crock. If it were about telling it how it is, there wouldn't be a bunch
of superfluous, structurally challenging lumps coming out of the buildings.

------
carsongross
Alienated architects and cheap capitalists make for a pretty awful built
environment, don't they?

[https://www.amazon.com/Bauhaus-Our-House-Tom-
Wolfe/dp/031242...](https://www.amazon.com/Bauhaus-Our-House-Tom-
Wolfe/dp/0312429142)

------
hood_syntax
What I like most about architecture like this is the lack of noise. The
intention comes through, my senses can focus on the substance rather than its
dressing. I only hope that, contrary to what the article says, the revival
will not mean losing its soul.

------
soyiuz
Brutalism, like any architectural trend, surely had its eye sores. But let's
not forget its beauty as well. Some of the buildings I enjoy are Harvard's
Carpenter Center by Le Corbusier
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_Center_for_the_Visua...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_Center_for_the_Visual_Arts)),
Sert's Peabody Terrace
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peabody_Terrace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peabody_Terrace)),
and the sculptural craziness of Forder and Wotruba
([http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0ar6wJQtbFQ/TghHUI6e8tI/AAAAAAAAMO...](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0ar6wJQtbFQ/TghHUI6e8tI/AAAAAAAAMOs/ZSuLFCc6aS0/s1600/blog-
walter-forderer-architect-9.jpg) and
[http://www.uncubemagazine.com/sixcms/media.php/1323/Wotrubak...](http://www.uncubemagazine.com/sixcms/media.php/1323/Wotrubakirche_4-\(1-von-1\).jpg))

------
wtvanhest
The best modernization of brutalism I have seen is at UCF:

[http://rwc.sdes.ucf.edu/image/809](http://rwc.sdes.ucf.edu/image/809)

[http://centric.cos.ucf.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2011/04/cropbl...](http://centric.cos.ucf.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2011/04/cropblimp6.jpg)

Basically the campus started with a bunch of kind of interesting brutalist
buildings and build around it to house its growth from 15,000 to 60,000
students. They mixed huge modern glass with brick and the campus is
spectacular.

~~~
afterburner
At least they didn't go gray. Brick brown is a huge step up. And glass
improves it.

------
bogomipz
Its easy to look at examples from master architects like Khan and Corbusier
and extol the virtues of Brutalist Architecture.

But for every Khan there are a dozen insipid and unwelcoming municipal
courthouses and depressing tower blocks. This presents some good contrasts
between the two in New York City alone:

[https://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/market-
insight/features/iconi...](https://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/market-
insight/features/iconic-addresses/new-yorks-brutalism-batch-the-good-bad/3003)

~~~
hilop
I can't see any different between the GOOD and the BAD sections. Some
buildings look OK, some look unpleasant or awful.

------
lucker
I don't want it! I've never understood why an obscure modern art movement got
so much traction in a field where much funding comes from the government.
Wait... never mind, I guess it makes perfect sense. Consumers wouldn't buy
brutalist soup cans, but the government can deliver architecture of almost any
level of ugliness to people.

Well, at least brutalism isn't as ugly or wasteful of money as the HTML/CSS
combo, and unlike the latter at least brutalism is not _fundamentally wrong_ ,
so there's that.

------
yc-kraln
Reminder that Brutalism isn't related to the English word Brutal, but rather
from the French meaning "naked".

~~~
wtbob
They do share a common root in the Latin brūt, meaning heavy, animal, raw.

------
wycx
Anyone here worked at the Salk Institute? Are the buildings as good to work in
as they are to look at?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salk_Institute_for_Biological_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salk_Institute_for_Biological_Studies)

~~~
et-al
I'm personally hesitant to call Louis Kahn's Salk Institute Brutalist. I know
many define Brutalism simply as buildings with large swaths of raw concrete,
which probably qualifies 95% of modernist architecture. For me, I consider
concrete oppressiveness, a certain level of heaviness, to be involved in
Brutalism. The Salk Institute, in contrast, has lightness and openness.

I never got a chance to go inside, or work there, but when I visited a few
years ago, and it seemed like the offices had generous windows; however the
wood frames were definitely weathered and could have used more care. It's was
gorgeous to walk around and I recommend somehow scheduling a tour if you
happen to be in La Jolla (San Diego).

[http://www.salk.edu/events/tour-
information/](http://www.salk.edu/events/tour-information/)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _I 'm personally hesitant to call Louis Kahn's Salk Institute Brutalist. I
> know many define Brutalism simply as buildings with large swaths of raw
> concrete, which probably qualifies 95% of modernist architecture. For me, I
> consider concrete oppressiveness, a certain level of heaviness, to be
> involved in Brutalism. The Salk Institute, in contrast, has lightness and
> openness._

It sounds like you're saying "it can't be Brutalist, because it's good." A bit
No True Scotsman, perhaps?

~~~
et-al
Ha, I can see that interpretation. I just think the "raw concrete" definition
for Brutalism is too general. If one designs a Deconstructivist building with
raw concrete, does it all of a sudden make it Brutalist? Of course the terms
aren't mutually exclusive, and we'd probably stroke our chins and mutter
"hmmmm.. deconstructivist with brutalist tendencies, eeehhh?"

(And personally, I've always enjoyed Brutalist buildings; having studied in a
few.)

------
stana
Brutalism not back according to the authorities in Sydney. The Sirius building
waiting for the wrecking ball as we speak.

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

~~~
stupidcar
That's nothing to do with architecture though. It's the NSW government wanting
to socially cleanse Sydney and replace the homes of the poor with luxury
apartments.

------
dayontonight
William Pereira has left some very impressive examples of brutalist design
throughout California.

[https://modernistarchitecture.blogspot.com/2015/03/uc-
irvine...](https://modernistarchitecture.blogspot.com/2015/03/uc-irvine-
singular-brutalist-vision.html)

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

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

------
ekianjo
> no question that brutalism vis exceedingly cool

All right, NYT is telling us what to think now?

------
mastazi
Architecture of Doom is a good blog for those who are interested in brutalism:
[http://architectureofdoom.tumblr.com/](http://architectureofdoom.tumblr.com/)

------
musesum
So, the Pierre Cardin Bubble house is brutalist?
[http://www.livbit.com/article/2010/06/11/bubble-palace-an-
un...](http://www.livbit.com/article/2010/06/11/bubble-palace-an-unusual-form-
of-architecture/)

With this in mind, I wonder what you could do with a 3D printer:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ5Elbvvr1M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ5Elbvvr1M)

------
RandomName2020
They get it wrong. It is not brutalism is back, it modernism in general; what
we are witnessing is the end of postmodernism. Postmodernism seem to be in
conflict with the faith into progress, both social and technological, yet
we've been witnessing tremendous technological progress since early 2000s -
nothing revolutionary, but still great advances in mobile, in science etc. So
yes, brutalism, as an offspring of modernism, is back.

------
hudibras
Am I too late to mention the University of Washington's More Hall Annex? It's
perhaps better known by its original (and, yes, official) name, the Nuclear
Reactor Building.

[http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/uws-
nuke-...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/uws-nuke-reactor-
building-cold-ugly-and-worth-saving/)

------
edem
Metro 4 was just finished a while ago in Budapest/Hungary and some of the
stations look like maps from Quake 2. They are brutal.

~~~
leadingthenet
Honestly, I'm not sure why they went for that style. With the sheer distaste
people had for soviet style architecture after '89, they could have picked a
number of far better choices than they did. It may have been a cost-cutting
option, but iirc the project went way over-budget anyway.

------
norea-armozel
The only thing about brutalist architecture I've liked is the over all shape
of the buildings but the rest of the designs are just a nightmare especially
when it comes to floor plans. I get that they want to strip away the excesses
of previous architectural styles but a floor plan shouldn't be one of them.

------
beat
Interesting to see this after admiring a Brutalist building today. It's the
Phillips-Wagensteen building on the University of Minnesota campus, filled
with medical offices. It's really two buildings connected by a multi-story
skyway. Pebbled concrete surface, strong vertical and horizontal lines.

It's not pretty, but it is beautiful.

------
JonnieCache
If you're interested in brutalism I can reccommend these superb documentaries
by Jonathan Meades:

[https://meadesshrine.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/bunkers.html](https://meadesshrine.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/bunkers.html)

That site has all of his films on there and they're all amazing tbh.

------
kchoudhu
Hey, I used to live in those red (Parliament adjacent) buildings in Dhaka,
Bangladesh.

They were overly spacious (i.e. 20 foot ceilings) and ridiculously
impractical. If Brutalism is back, we should show it the door again.

------
conanbatt
Buenos aires has several public Brutalist structures: the University of Buenos
Aires and the public library are some of them.

They are by far the most hideous buildings in the city.

------
redwood
I was happy to see the National Parliament in Dhaka prominently featured.
Amazing building. Feels like you're inside the Death Star inside.

~~~
wtbob
> Feels like you're inside the Death Star inside.

Is feeling as though one is inside a soulless death-machine a desirable
quality in a legislature?

------
tehchromic
I couldn't be happier in the context of permacultural revolution, it make
sense. Art povera will make a comeback next mark these words!

------
ktRolster
Brick buildings are the purist form of brutalism. They're all over the place.

------
coldcode
When I read the title I thought it was about politics.

