Learning to Love Brutalist Architecture | Hacker News Reader

Learning to Love Brutalist Architecture

telegraph.co.uk

42 pointsThevet48 comments

To me, it represents the point where glorification of the lead architect became more important than the function of the building or practice of architecture. So you get monumental architecture that in addition to being horrifically ugly, is usually non-functional and doesn't wear well, with lots of flat roofing and poor planning for water displacement.

In my city, we have an old high school built in 1905 whose interior was refurbished and remains in service as part of a university. The replacement high school, built in the 70s, is a brutalist dump infested with mold and falling apart. The 1970 building will be torn down at great expense soon, while the 1905 building has a good chance of still being in use in some form 100 years from now.

Some of it is ugly, but some of it has an incredible stark beauty.

That beauty is usually abstract, and brutalist buildings, unless they are very deftly placed, typically destroy the civic and aesthetic fabric they are located in. Yes, they can appeal intellectually to the high-minded modernist, but the guy simply trying to find the entrance for a decent cup of coffee's life is ruined on that account.

The problem with modern architecture is that it requires a genius to pull off, and the vast majority of architects, and I would say projects by geniuses, do not even come close.

I am reluctant to things whose beauty can be appreciated only by a few knowing that we might had instead things of beauty appreciated by many. So, let's appreciate (or tolerate) existing brutalism for the sake of diversity, but let's try not proliferate this because its raw value doesn't really warrant that!

Totally understand. I spent several years working at a brutalist shrine modeled as a modern interpretation of the forum of Rome. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_State_Plaza)

It's an amazing expression of grandeur and power, especially as a model. But in person... it is too big, too ambitious, too set apart from the city it dominates.

>> So you get monumental architecture that in addition to being horrifically ugly, is usually non-functional and doesn't wear well, with lots of flat roofing and poor planning for water displacement.

This has also been the case for many of Frank Loyd Wright's houses. Many of his "architectural masterpieces" have been wrought with issues almost since they were built:

When researching the engineering defects and customer complaints of Wright-designed residences, I can’t shake the stereotype of a pretentious and bratty artiste abusing the largess of monied patrons who are willing to tolerate such behavior in hopes that their social status will reflect the golden light of artistic genius. This is a commonly accepted personality trait of Great Artists.

http://www.beltstl.com/2006/06/case-against-frank-lloyd-wrig...

If you can find a copy of Herbert Simon's Models of My Life, have a gander at his remarks on Mies van der Rohe and assorted other architects.

Check out this blog for lots of fun pictures of that kind of thing: http://architectureofdoom.tumblr.com

The feeling that you're actually browsing someones collection of atonal german techno records is inescapable.

I think there's a very big difference between Brutalist architecture as practiced by the architects in that movement and soviet architecture whose main objective was to be cheap and fast to build (and maybe sprinkle in some propaganda).

There is an old soviet movie whose intro sums up how the brutalist architecture was adapted by the regime - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9W0GCvPz4E

PSA: use of concrete != brutalist. The articles makes it confusing for someone not familiar with the distinction, because the author flips back and forth between discussing the use of concrete in architecture and discussing brutalist buildings.

E.g. the kitchen (and the house it is in), the shop, and the bridges in the article are not at all brutalist.

I'm pretty sure the style is called "industrial chic".

Move to any major Brazilian city and you will learn to hate it. The sheer amount of brutalist buildings just ruins every skyline in the country. When I go to big cities abroad, I really feel in a totally different world

When I saw this headline I thought it was about software architecture. A lot of what I see could be described as brutal.

The practical problem is that concrete gets gross. I work in the Watergate, which is a mostly concrete crime against humanity from a slightly later era, and it's gross close-up. It looks in far worse shape than turn of the century masonry buildings around the country.

I lived near the Watergate one summer as an intern and would shop at that awful little Safeway on the lower level. I was expecting the Watergate to be so much more, given its historical significance/infamy. Nope. Hideous.

"Brutalist architecture" looks to me a lot like every other building here in Warsaw Pact countries.

Can see the similarity but "built mostly with unfinished concrete" != Brutalism.

It has a defined style, my absolute favourite is The Barbican Estate in London

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/London_b... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbican_Estate

When done without style it's horribly oppressive though but I don't think any less oppressive than the nasty steel and glass monoliths going up everywhere.

Also I love concrete, when done using high grade materials and polished it leaves a lovely finish approaching marble.

I'd quite like to use it as a material for furniture but for the weight problems.

In the UK there are/were so many "brutalist carpark" constructions with poor quality finishes that weathered terribly that the reputation is rather tarnished.

I love the Barbican as well. These big concrete cliffs and plains remind me of the countryside in some remoter bits of the UK.

It's telling though that so few people go there. To walk east from Barbican tube station, you can either go along Beech St (through the tunnel built for motor traffic under the Barbican) or over a footbridge and across the Barbican itself, which is quieter and has better air and doesn't involve waiting to cross any roads. The latter seems the obvious thing to do, but at rush hour the tunnel is busy with pedestrians, while the Barbican pedestrian level is almost empty.

The Barbican is definitely amazing — another favourite of mine is the Preston Bus Station: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Preston_...

That's not a coincidence. American haute architecture for much of the twentieth century was heavily influenced by Soviet architecture, and Brutalism is an offshoot of that school.

Nope. Most Brutalism still looks ugly and unfinished. Yeah it's cool that concrete can be made into all kinds of shapes, but I'd argue while Brutalist forms may be technically difficult they are not particularly aesthetically pleasing over the long term.

I think a lot of this Brutalist revival comes from people who don't live with these buildings (not all but I think a majority.) Brutalist buildings are impressive and even bracing when you first see them, but if you are in a position to see them every day, that's when they become drab, dull and even an ugly.

There's a reason they developed that reputation over time, and only now when a generation of people who aren't familiar with them and don't live with them finally rediscover these buildings they are the ones who like them. Tell me you still love them if you actually live with them every day and don't just look at it on a desktop, then I might buy that this is more than a retro-nostalgia driven fad.

I'll bite: Williamson Hall at the University of Minnesota is by far one of my favorite buildings, but has a very brutalist chic.

Went out to Radio Kootwijk in NL last weekend, really cool space... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Kootwijk

I'd say that building has more of an industrial Art Deco vibe to it than Brutalist. Have a look at Battersea Power Station and you'll see what I mean:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battersea_Power_Station

Can we please instead unlearn XX century?

Build like this again:

http://nesiditsa.ru/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/228.jpg

3-6 floors, organized in blocks, one after anothers, with lot of nice details.

I fail to grasp why architects still propose those hideous buildings nobody want to live near? All kinds of glass blocks? Displayed out of context because they stick out surroundings.

While Brutalist tend to be ugly, there's Constructivism which introduced most of Brutalist upsides without downsides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_architecture

There's a wonderful BBC documentary about how we ended up in this mess and the vitality of beauty in our everyday lives. If you've never had the pleasure, you'll need about an hour, and you will find yourself thinking about it for years to come: "Why Beauty Matters" https://vimeo.com/112655231

You know one of the big problems with brutalist isn't necessarily the architecture itself as opposed to how it it weathers in some climates like either England (new or old). I remember seeing some brutalist buildings in Washington DC and being like 'wow those don't look like shit' so used to seeing Boston city hall and Alewife station, which do.

I get your point, but I would argue that making the building with the right materials for a given environment is part of the architecture itself.

For those of you inclined to disagree with the idea of learning to love obviously ugly buildings, I would like to recommend two books:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Geography-Nowhere-Americas-Landsca...

http://www.amazon.com/Bauhaus-Our-House-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0312429...

Kunstler is a bit of a crank, but his analysis of the problems with modern architecture and urbanism are very good. Wolfe, of course, is a genius, and his very short book is a fantastic and deeply funny (if depressing) read.

There was a great episode of the fantastic podcast, 99 Percent Invisible, on brutalist architecture: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/hard-to-love-a-brute/

Not brutalist but since we're talking concrete... I've long been a fan of Japanese architect Tadao Ando[0].

A lot of brutalist buildings are imposing blocky structures but Ando's buildings are poetry in concrete. The looming mass of negative space in the Chikatsu Asuka Museum[1] is one of the spookiest and most awesome architectural experiences I've had (it's dedicated to ancient tombs in the area). I used to love hanging out at Galleria Akka[2] and I treasure the afternoon I spent at the Church of Light[3].

For me a defining feature of Japanese aesthetics is appreciation of the materials from which a thing is made (there's a word for it but I've forgotten). A wooden spoon should not hide the fact that is made of wood. A clay tea bowl should celebrate its "clay-ness" rather than try to cover itself with glazing, unless the point is to celebrate the materiality of the glaze. (This aesthetic is the exact opposite of skuemorphism.) Ando applied this concept to concrete. In some of his buildings the concrete is rough and you can see the stones embedded in it; in other buildings it is smooth as glass.

All that said, I've heard from architects and occupants that his buildings leak like sieves. They're mostly not practical buildings. They're intended to make a visual statement.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadao_Ando [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_Prefectural_Chikatsu_Asu... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Galleria_%EF%BD%81%EF%BD%... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Light

Update: edited for formatting (why can't HN just use Markdown or RestructuredText??)

The reason why many find/found it ugly is that it's cheap. There's a long history of expensive things defining whats beautiful in architecture.

The typical red of Swedish houses is imitating brick houses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falu_red

Timber framing houses were often directly built with a stone facade. Only nowadays we have learned to love timber framing houses.

The Brutalist style is strangely beautiful when integrated with Classical architecture (see, for example, the Ulster Museum).

It is however just a shell and the spaces inside should be bright, inviting, functional and a joy to live in- that's what I find most important about architecture (and I am just a layman).

It's a matter of personal taste. I'd say the brutalist style is at its worst when juxtaposed with more traditional styles, and at its best when completely alone in the landscape where its unusual proportions are less jarring, and the bare concrete looks earthy rather than dirty

At least the Ulster Museum architect - whose creation looks like it's in the process of devouring the older building - seems to have had a sense of humour.

If you get to be alone in the landscape, it means the landscape is unwalkable, which is no go.

I know it's common to hate on it, but I actually love a lot of Brutalist Architecture. It shows a strong commitment to infrastructure that I rarely see today.

Plus, a number of the examples just look very genuinely nice to be around (the Spaghetti Junction, Brunswick Centre, and Zog House in the article all look great)

One of the reasons brutalism is ugly, is that the movement more or less explicitly rejects aesthetics -- or rather, given the movement's alignment with socialism, it rejects bourgeois notions of aesthetics.

Yes, it was a part of the social leveling plan. It was a hard challenge from the architects' part in finding ways to infiltrate at least some sorts of aesthetics into the politically highly sought plainness and dullness.

The empire and first order environs are heavily inspired by brutalist architecture.

If anybody is interested in more Brutalism architecture, I would recommend DeZeen's collection of articles on the subject matter, you'll get a much broader view and interpretation of this style:

The Dezeen guide to Brutalist architecture: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/09/10/dezeen-guide-to-brutalist-a...

Architects pick their favourite Brutalist buildings: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/09/19/architects-favourite-brutal...

11 lesser-known Brutalist buildings that helped define the movement: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/09/14/fuckyeahbrutalism-top-11-br...

Brutalist buildings: National Theatre, London by Denys Lasdun: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/10/06/brutalist-buildings-nationa...

Brutalist buildings: Prentice Women's Hospital, Chicago by Bertrand Goldberg & Associates: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/10/02/prentice-womens-hospital-ch...

Brutalist buildings: Yale Art and Architecture Building, Connecticut by Paul Rudolph: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/09/26/yale-art-and-architecture-b...

Brutalist buildings: Pilgrimage Church, Neviges by Gottfried Böhm: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/09/17/brutalist-buildings-pilgrim...

Brutalist buildings: Habitat 67, Montreal by Moshe Safdie: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/09/11/brutalist-buildings-habitat...

The Yale Architecture building is amazing and one of my favorites.

Like learning to love an abusive spouse.

Must? Must???

Ugly is ugly. No, I don't need to learn to love it.

I suspect the title was meant a brutalist play itself, but we've mollified it for you.

Isn't nice how media is bold at deciding how you should be? #sarcasm

How about we just admit that it's horrible, tear down all those monstrosities and go back to nice classical European buildings like we used to?

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