Concrete jungle: why brutalist architecture is back in style

[Dan '82]

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...CMP=twt_gu

Quote:Mies van der Rohe was born first, in 1886, in Aachen, Germany. Le Corbusier arrived the following year, and 250 miles to the south, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Mies went on to become the godfather of the steel-and-glass international style; Corbu, enamored with the possibilities of concrete, essentially created brutalism. Which means that not only were the two architects great builders in their own right; they were also responsible for creating the greatest sibling rivalry in the history of architecture.

Le Corbusier’s brutalism took an early lead, not least because of concrete’s cost advantage: it is cheap and abundant, the second most consumed material in the world, after water. Brutalism also had the art-historical advantage of fitting easily into a centuries-long narrative. The monumental brutalist vaulting of the Washington Metro, for instance, is uncannily similar to that found in largest concrete dome in the world – the 2,000-year-old Pantheon, in Rome...



https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...CMP=twt_gu

[Warren Dew]

Or, perhaps, internationalist buildings are simply more vulnerable to terrorists with airliners.

[Odin]

UGHHHHHH, I despise Brutalist architecture. It's disgusting, soulless, and not appropriate for a free society.

[pbrower2a]

Brutalist architecture? The perfect expression of cultural fascism or cultural Bolshevism. Whether in sports venues, houses of worship, or educational settings, it is the sort most likely to be destroyed as eyesores.

The only valid use I can see for brutalism in architecture is for prisons, which one legitimately wants to be scary.

[Warren Dew]

(10-15-2016, 11:02 AM)Odin Wrote: UGHHHHHH, I despise Brutalist architecture. It's disgusting, soulless, and not appropriate for a free society.

It's cheap and efficient, though.  And I'd argue some instances have some beauty of their own:



That's an I. M. Pei building, and directly facing it across a river is an I. M. Pei Internationalist building:



Also beautiful.