Forgive me if I'm wrong but isn't brutalist architecture basically just anything built mostly out of concrete? I mean, there's an emphasis on geometric shapes too, but anything that has an exterior of > 50% concrete is gonna be ugly by default.
There are some interesting buildings in the brutalist style but if you've ever spent time in a Eastern European former communist country you'll know exactly what I am talking about. Soulless and ugly buildings that could only be designed to crush your spirit.
There is a large and interesting literature on brutalism if one wants to take the time to look into it. One of the progenitors of the movement, Le Corbusier (yes, a cheese eating surrender monkey) focused on the natural look of the concrete after the forms are taken away, and how it preserves the grain of the wood that the forms were built of. There are many people who love brutalist architecture, and there are some admittedly stunning designs. However, it all depends on how it is carried out. Some of it is inspiring, but most of it is soul-crushing.
Le Corbusier is himself an interesting case study. He hated traditional architecture, called houses "a machine for living in," and wanted to tear down parts of Paris and build a series of identical tower blocks, like "The Projects." Fortunately, he didn't get his way with Paris.
Yeah usually, unless someone goes out of their way to mould pieces that fit together that end up looking beautiful. I gather there’s a full size concrete replica of the Greek temple of Artemis, or Pantheon or (I think that’s what it’s called?)in the USA that you can visit and walk around.
Either Kentucky or somewhere south ish? Probably completely wide of the mark. I’d love to see it myself.
See, if all new buildings were built in that kinda style... it would be lovely.
There is a particularly fascinating aspect to this in the systematic project by the Ceaușescu regime in Romania to tear down the traditional parts of Bucharest, and move the residents to newly built (in the Soviet brutalist style) soulless apartment blocks. This was intentional, and you can see the consequences of this in Bucharest today. They purposefully wanted to take people out of traditional buildings and to house them in commie blocks in their quest to create a new socialist man.
Warsaw outside the very small restored section downtown is also like this, and it's pretty awful to be honest. You have to go to the small towns to see the intact traditional architecture of central Europe.
I was fortunate enough to be in Hungary in the late 1990s, when they began redoing Budapest and the smaller city that I lived in. You could see the optimism growing within the people and the beauty of the city being restored in parallel. Last time I was there, there was still a massive amount of old shitty buildings, but from my first visit until my last there was tremendous improvement.
I took a drive to Prague during that time. I noticed the typical Soviet style concrete behemoth of depressing apartment buildings as I was a few miles outside the city. Then you get to the real city center and it is just beautiful.
Just like when communists in Eastern Europe moved to Brutalist architecture. The ugliness spiritually crushes your soul.
It's "chowdah".
Forgive me if I'm wrong but isn't brutalist architecture basically just anything built mostly out of concrete? I mean, there's an emphasis on geometric shapes too, but anything that has an exterior of > 50% concrete is gonna be ugly by default.
There are some interesting buildings in the brutalist style but if you've ever spent time in a Eastern European former communist country you'll know exactly what I am talking about. Soulless and ugly buildings that could only be designed to crush your spirit.
Taiwan too. The KMT kept pretending that they were going to "retake the mainland" any day now, and that all these concrete boxes were just temporary.
Seventy years later. . . .
There is a large and interesting literature on brutalism if one wants to take the time to look into it. One of the progenitors of the movement, Le Corbusier (yes, a cheese eating surrender monkey) focused on the natural look of the concrete after the forms are taken away, and how it preserves the grain of the wood that the forms were built of. There are many people who love brutalist architecture, and there are some admittedly stunning designs. However, it all depends on how it is carried out. Some of it is inspiring, but most of it is soul-crushing.
Le Corbusier is himself an interesting case study. He hated traditional architecture, called houses "a machine for living in," and wanted to tear down parts of Paris and build a series of identical tower blocks, like "The Projects." Fortunately, he didn't get his way with Paris.
Yes, that's kind of the whole point of a house.
Yeah usually, unless someone goes out of their way to mould pieces that fit together that end up looking beautiful. I gather there’s a full size concrete replica of the Greek temple of Artemis, or Pantheon or (I think that’s what it’s called?)in the USA that you can visit and walk around.
Either Kentucky or somewhere south ish? Probably completely wide of the mark. I’d love to see it myself.
See, if all new buildings were built in that kinda style... it would be lovely.
There is a particularly fascinating aspect to this in the systematic project by the Ceaușescu regime in Romania to tear down the traditional parts of Bucharest, and move the residents to newly built (in the Soviet brutalist style) soulless apartment blocks. This was intentional, and you can see the consequences of this in Bucharest today. They purposefully wanted to take people out of traditional buildings and to house them in commie blocks in their quest to create a new socialist man.
Warsaw outside the very small restored section downtown is also like this, and it's pretty awful to be honest. You have to go to the small towns to see the intact traditional architecture of central Europe.
I was fortunate enough to be in Hungary in the late 1990s, when they began redoing Budapest and the smaller city that I lived in. You could see the optimism growing within the people and the beauty of the city being restored in parallel. Last time I was there, there was still a massive amount of old shitty buildings, but from my first visit until my last there was tremendous improvement.
I took a drive to Prague during that time. I noticed the typical Soviet style concrete behemoth of depressing apartment buildings as I was a few miles outside the city. Then you get to the real city center and it is just beautiful.