Brutalism is the worst architectonic style. I spent quite a bit of time in brutalist buildings and they impact you negatively. Idk why anyone would want to reference that.
I think we all benefit from a little bit of useless ornament. Unadorned brut concrete rapidly becomes so ugly that some buildings became notorious suicide spots.
Well at least they grow some function as opposed to the most of the contemporary web.
I find the Barbican in London — which I walk through most days — to be a very uplifting building!
Other brutalist buildings are just horid. I worked in Sampson House (just behind Tate Modern) for a couple of years which is also brutalist but the interior is dank corridors and dingy spaces. I also worked at the brutalist IBM offices next door to the National Theatre and it was also a souless space inside. They have absolutely zero-ambition and are the polar opposite of the spaces at the Barbican and National Theatre.
When I was last at the Barbican I found it very hard to navigate, and I was relieved to be told by the staff there about the many “alterations” they’ve had to make to try to make the building less confusing and alien.
Most all other examples just feel like dystopian nightmares.
There are many exceptional examples of brutalist architecture in Paris, some well kept, some not so much:
http://www.anothermag.com/design-living/9587/the-brutalist-b...
No, there are objectively terrible styles.
Of course I'm sure brutalism can be done badly too (like anything), and I haven't spent time on the inside of too many others... but there can be something profound about it -- a modern building in balance that tries to be exactly what it is, no more, no less.
As you can see, it’s been really great for our mental health :) [2]. I can appreciate this style of architecture from an intellectual level, but to be around these kinds of buildings daily is a little exhausting.
Sources:
[1]https://www.flickr.com/photos/ericejohnson/6344277129/in/pho...
[?] Word of mouth.
[2]https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings?rankings=le...
Indeed. There are many things – not only architecture – that are interesting to look at for a bit, maybe on paper, but that I would never want to actually have around me in my life. It seems that some people do not consider this difference. Architecture is particularly troublesome, since others force it upon you. You cannot choose it like you can choose what music to engage with, for example.
Concrete and stone exteriors really go from great to horrific if they're not sealed properly.
I really like a lot of brutalist architecture, but much of it is far LESS functional/useful/practical than other styles. Brutalism was an aesthetic, largely a reaction to existing forms--many of which were characterized by their utility! A lot of brutalist architects were rebelling against the bourgeois notion of a building as merely (as they saw it) "a place intended for humans to live, work, and play", and instead asserting the notion of a building as an artistic form in its own right, which often meant intentionally disregarding or downplaying the importance of the building's utility for the humans who interacted with it! Anyone who has lived or worked in a brutalist building can aver this truth: if the building served its function w/r/t humans, it was often DESPITE its artistic intentions, which prioritized almost everything else instead.