What is Brutalist architecture and why is it important?

Few people can agree on whether Brutalist architecture is good to look at, but it seems like everyone wants to have an opinion on the subject.

In 2020, for example, U.S. President Donald Trump targeted Brutalist architecture in an executive order requiring all future federal buildings to adopt “classical architectural styles.” The order said Brutalist and deconstructive styles were “unsatisfactory” for this aesthetic. The following year, when Joe Biden became president, he rescinded the executive order, much to the relief of many architects.

Even before that, however, people couldn’t stop talking about barbarism. In 2016, an article was titled “Brutalism is Back!” T: The New York Times Style Magazine. The movement has been the subject of viral tweets, numerous online discussions and even a Reddit subreddit.

With the release of Brutalism, brutalism became a mainstream topic again. fauvismA three-and-a-half-hour film that tells the story of Lászlo Tóth, an exponent of this style. (Like Lydia Tarr, Thoth wasn’t real, despite the film’s efforts to make him a key figure in the postwar era.) The film has become a serious awards contender, having won a spot at the Academy Awards Won the highest award in the drama category. Earlier this month, the Golden Globes achieved an unlikely box office success.

But what is brutalism and why does it matter? Below is a guide to the campaign.

What does Brutalist architecture look like?

Many Brutalist buildings made heavy use of concrete, which was used in large, austere and spare structures. The Brower Building, the former site of the Whitney Museum on New York’s Upper East Side, is considered one of the movement’s landmark buildings. Completed in 1966, it was designed by Marcel Breuer, who conceived the building as an inverted ziggurats. The building represents Brutalist tendencies toward minimalism and thick, angular forms—two things that proved divisive among critics and the public, who often found the aesthetic difficult to appreciate.

When did barbarism develop?

The answer to this question, like other questions about the history of brutalism, is tricky because not everyone associated with the movement is particularly fond of its name. Nonetheless, most scholars agree that this trend emerged shortly after the end of World War II. By then, architects associated with the Bauhaus school and related movements that emerged from it had begun to emphasize functionalism, placing practicality first.

Where did the name Brutalism come from?

Le Corbusier was an influential Swiss architect who ended up designing the United Nations Headquarters in New York and ultimately coined the term when he created Unité d’habitation, a housing development in Marseille, France. , this residential development was completed in 1952. He described the building as “béton brut” in French which translates to “raw concrete”. He was referring not only to the material but also to its aesthetic rawness. Once poured, the concrete is smooth, flat, and imperfections are essentially eliminated.

Swedish architect Hans Asplund is also generally considered to be the source of the Brutalist name. It is thought that he used the word barbarism Describes the Villa Göth building he built in 1949 for the CEO of a Swedish pharmaceutical company. The building differs from many of the buildings we now associate with Brutalism, relying less on concrete and less on brickwork. Still, it has a rough, imposing appearance and a similar feel.

Who came up with the theory of barbarism?

British architecture critic Rainer Banham is often credited with formalizing the movement. In a 1955 article architectural reviewwho praised the Brutalist style for hiding nothing from the audience. Banham writes: “Whatever one may think of the honest use of materials, most modern buildings appear to be made of stucco or patent glass, even if they are made of concrete or steel.” Brutalist Architecture See They look completely different, as they are obviously made of concrete, glass, etc. As an example, he cites a school designed by Alison and Peter Smithson in the English town of Hunthornton.

What is the significance of Brutalist architecture?

For many designers involved in the movement, Brutalist architecture was not meant to be provocative. On the contrary, the purpose of this style was to stay out of the way of the public and show the layman that modernist architecture was actually compatible with everyday life. In this way, Brutalism aspired to move the world toward utopian ideals, a trend that became particularly evident as the style moved beyond Western Europe.

In the former Yugoslavia, for example, Brutalist architects built buildings such as residential complexes and hotels with an eye on bringing society on an equal footing. While many hotels across Europe were clearly demarcated, with the more luxurious hotels catering to elite vacations, Yugoslavia’s Brutalist hotels catered for almost everyone, regardless of race or class. The uniformity of appearance reflected the movement’s egalitarian aspirations.

Why so much concrete?

One of the reasons for the rise of Brutalist architecture was the relatively low cost of the materials used. When the devastation of World War II left budgets stretched and cities devastated, concrete was readily available—it could be purchased in large quantities, and buildings that relied heavily on the material could be constructed quickly.

Why is brutalism so controversial?

Arguably, there is no architectural movement more polarizing than Brutalism, and Trump is not the only one to call derivatives of the Brutalist style “ugly.” The reason for this often lies in its unflattering appearance: Brutalism is considered an eyesore, a relic of a different era, far removed from our own. 2024, NPR Residents of Washington, D.C., were interviewed to get their thoughts on the FBI’s brutalist headquarters. “I work across from it, so I have to look at it every day in the office, and it’s just so ugly,” said one. Another said the building looked like “a building with windows. A prison is just a slab of concrete stuck in the middle of the city.”

Still, the movement had followers who appreciated the honesty of Brutalist aesthetics. Journalist Alexander Nazaryan wrote in a 2024 article: “Oft-maligned Brutalism remains my ideal arrangement, not only for housing, but for life.” new york times prose. He says the Brutalist architecture he grew up in in Soviet Russia (then Leningrad) instilled in him a belief that this aesthetic could lead to “a society more hopeful and bolder than our own.” .

Where can I find Brutalist architecture?

Brutalism spread across the world, from Boston to Belgrade, and can now be found in both hemispheres of the world. From the Barbican Center in London to the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, there are art centers built in Brutalist style, as well as housing projects, schools, government buildings and more.

Are there any inspirations from the real Fauvism? fauvism?

The architect Lászlo Tóth played in Adrien Brody’s 2024 Brady Corbet movie never existed, but some Similarities were noted between the character and Marcel Breuer. Like Blore, Todt was born in Hungary and eventually settled in the United States. (Blower left Germany during the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s and became a U.S. citizen in 1944; Toth immigrated to the United States sometime after World War II.) Like Blore, Toth was Jewish. Like Breuer, Toth specialized in hulking, blocky buildings made of concrete.

The similarities between Todt and Breuer essentially ended there—Blower never built a civic center and cathedral for a wealthy Pennsylvanian, as Todt eventually did. However, Breuer did build a Benedictine monastery in Minneapolis, and Corbett said one of the film’s inspirations was the anti-Semitism Breuer experienced.

Why brutalism and not another architectural movement fauvism?

Corbett told roger ebert website Brutalism is relevant to him this week, as the style still “annoys people” today, citing Trump’s executive order. But Corbett also says another reason is the honesty of style. Just as Toth publicly revealed itself to the world, so too did Toth’s architecture. However, the world was not willing to accept these structures, nor Thoth himself.

In the same interview, Corbett said Brutalism was “the perfect visual allegory for exploring postwar trauma as it relates to postwar architecture.” What exactly this allegory meant is a matter of debate. In the film’s controversial coda, when Israel commemorates Toth’s Brutalist architecture at the first Venice Architecture Biennale, the architect’s niece tells onlookers that his buildings would have been seen during concentration camp internment scene into a new audience. However, this interpretation is uncommon among historians of real-life Brutalist architecture, and in the film, it’s unclear whether Todt himself believed it to be true, as he sits there in silence.