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Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

Honestly those don't look as awful and oppressive as a lot of the european examples. This may be because the sun shines in Singapore from time to time... also they seem to at least have some concessions to form that is not pure function.

But still pretty ugly. I can't grok the mindset that asks for these to be protected, other than as a weird form of contrarianism.

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Brutalism is a lot more interesting when you have a vague idea of the background of it => it's a kind of socialist/communist philosophy in architecture, pretty buildings are the enshrinement of social hierarchies into architecture, so build something that is egalitarian by nature - lots of identical units, function over form. Open spaces, honesty in the sense that the architecture shows you how it's really made with exposed concrete etc, not a facade. I guess you could argue that it's the lisp of architecture - no hiding the construction. I guess the point is that it's not mindlessly ugly, it's a statement about priorities and honesty in aesthetics.

But you have to look at the results - ugly monoliths that create oppressive spaces.

Having grown up around the results in the towns and cities of England, it's hard to see these ideals when a grey-brown lump of concrete is blocking out the already weak winter sunlight, unbroken straight lines make the wind howl through and chill you, and dark spaces accumulate litter and urine and seem to just encourage social problems.

So that's why I don't grok the mindset - can people not see what it actually becomes? I get that egalitarianism was there in the intent, but intent is not really relevant. Results are relevant.

As with all architecture there are good and bad examples (with bad examples usually lost over time - leaving only the good), and with brutalism in particular issues with poor maintenance. Maintain any building of any age and architectural 'school' poorly and it will become rundown, shabby, and unpleasant to live in/around.

I walk through the Barbican frequently, which is rightly a much celebrated building, and find it an extremely elevating experience. I also recently visited Royan Cathedral which is honestly one of the most beautiful I've ever been in. I think many brutalist buildings have been blighted by decades of neglect almost from right after they were built. That's not going to leave the best impression on anybody.

I don't think you can just blame poor maintenance - the material and style choices are just poor to start with.

The cathedral looks to me like a gun emplacement, or some relic of a forgotten war.

Funny you mention relics of wars. Have you seen the ruins of the Oslobođenje building in Sarajevo? That war ruin somehow manages to capture the aesthetic of well maintained brutalist architecture almost perfectly. Brutalist buildings on their best days look like ruins from a city under siege. Walking into a neighborhood with brutalist architecture feels like you've walked into some alternate timeline where WWIII is raging.

The cynical side of me suspects that brutalist architecture is a reflection of the psychological damage WWII inflicted on a generation of architects. They experienced an ugly world, then sought to recreate that ugliness in their work. Experiencing war corrupted them. Their legacy, their still standing buildings, are not unlike the iron harvest French and Belgian farmers experience every year when they till their fields and find bombs from WWI.

Personally, I find the ideological background of that style does very much align with the kind ugliness it evokes. Creates a feeling of a hopeless, purposeless world where nobody cares about you.

Aesthetically I don't think it's universally that bad. The real ugliness comes in when you actually look inside the units[0]. Quickly becomes apparent how at odds this style is with the way real people want to live. People go to great lengths to differentiate their seemingly identical unit. As if trying to maintain identity in a jail cell.

[0] or at attempts to "prettify" common areas

> I guess the point is that it's not mindlessly ugly, it's a statement about priorities and honesty in aesthetics.

Indeed, it’s not mindlessly ugly, it’s deliberately ugly. It’s like the difference between someone accidentally smashing fine porcelain and taking a hammer to it.

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