The Fascination of Brutalist Architecture

I think we can safely call it 'unsubtle'.

Soviet monument in Armenia. If I came upon it suddenly, I might run screaming.

It was an architectural aesthetic that lasted for all of thirty-four years, from 1949 until roughly 1983. Its temples of rain-stained concrete and blank, incurious windows have proven sadly vulnerable—fragile, even—to urban decay. All that concrete hasn’t aged well. It became a canvas for graffiti artists and the random tagger. Assaulted by everyday weather, its monoliths are crumpling.

Yet, I find my imagination consumed by what remains, which is a strange geometry of concrete, utilitarian in aspect, but also darkly malevolent: Brutalism. The term doesn’t come from its characteristics but the material it is made of, the French term Béton brut, or “raw concrete”. Until the global economic crash of the mid-1970s, brutalism became a byword for soulless institutionalism.

But was it?

Many people believe that proponents of brutalist architecture are elitist, pretentious, and contrarian, that no one could love a dog so ugly. And I will be the first to admit that given a choice between an easy-to-love pooch like an Italian church built during the High Renaissance versus a monstrous Soviet car park constructed of shoddy gray concrete, I’d likely go with the church, but the car park would probably invoke the same feeling of wonder.

I see decaying brutalist architecture for exactly what it is: grim, joyless, monolithic. However, it doesn’t make me love it any less.

Would I want to live in a brutalist structure? No. Fortunately, most examples of brutalism are institutional buildings—enjoy the delicious non-irony. I like it because I enjoy diversity, period. Not an entire city of brutalism; just the occasional brutalist monstrosity to marvel at in horror and fascination, to stare up at from the sidewalk and wonder: if I worked there, would I go mad?

Brutalism got kicked off with the Swiss-French architect, Le Corbusier. His modernist residential housing project, Unité d’habitation, built from 1947 to 1952, embodied his vision for high density housing, rough, concrete “bottle rack” structures, and balcony facades in child-like primary colors. Inspiration drawn from Soviet communal housing was entwined with 20th-century socialist ideals. If the inherent discontent of a people stems from daily proximity to houses grander than their own, wouldn’t happiness be more attainable if everyone lived in the same kind of utilitarian structure?

Le Corbusier’s Unité d’habitation in Marseille

Precast concrete practically defined the fifties and sixties in the United States; the sixties, seventies, and eighties in many parts of Eastern Europe. Concrete components are made by using baffling and formwork: essentially, a giant Jell-o mold into which cement, dry sand, dry stone, and water are poured.

Brutalism was an architecture borne in response to the end of the second World War when abundant, affordable housing was desperately needed. I believe the grim, imposing aesthetic was purposeful, but also a rebuttal to a world awash in blood, chaos, and pain. Just as the presence of a mountain can calm you and fix you to this earth, so, too. brutalist architecture. In its shadow, you become stern and no-nonsense by default.

Brutalism is totalitarian in aspect, meant for your contraction. One is shocked by its relentlessness, forced to withdraw into oneself. Not unlike a heavily decorated High Renaissance church, brutalism is there to remind you that you are nothing and no one. Powers exist that can destroy you in an instant. Here then is a temple for a new age where people are stripped of their own humanity, reduced to binary numbers and soulless computer algorithms.

Without steel rebar, brutalist architect is more fluid, more sinuous than one might imagine. It’s not just prefabricated, modular blocks. It can do things. It can disturb one’s equilibrium, just because it appears to defy the laws of gravity.

By far, my favorite manifestation of brutalism is corporate brutalism. You may well ask, why? Isn’t like that pouring sugar on top of a meringue? At the very least, it’s unnecessary; at most, it’s redundant. Yet I.M. Pei’s OCBC Center in downtown Singapore is post-war capitalism at its most horrifying. Informally, it’s called The Calculator, and one can easily see how it earned that moniker: the OCBC Center is a monolith of concrete with three embedded keypads. It’s a great, expressionless slab.

The OCBC Building in Singapore, designed for the famous architect I.M. Pei

But there are so many others to study, too:

Buffalo, New York, City Court Building. Straight out of The Matrix.

Water Tower in Johannesburg, South Africa, 1974, a giant cone

Hotel in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 1974, pure honeycomb

Monument to Fallen Soldiers in Yugoslavia, highly phallic

Genex Tower, Belgrade, 1977, true communal living

The impending tragedy is how few brutalist structures will survive without our intervention. Concrete, as it turns out, requires more care than brick or wood. Instead of trying to save a few buildings for posterity, we, in our very American way, are tearing them down with no regard for their historical significance.

America is always looking forward, you see.

Brutalism was meant to improve our lives and to level the playing field. There was an entire philosophy behind this movement that strove to revolutionize both housing and industry. But it was ultimately more utilitarian than pretty, more pragmatic than utopian.

By the time Reagan and Thatcher’s eighties’ juggernaut rolled around, no one was interested in concrete multipurpose structures. They wanted Falcon Crest.

They also wanted to party like it was 1999.

On a scale of 1-10, how much do you hate brutalism? If so, why? I want to hear all about it, so be sure to leave your comments below.