Brutalism: A Concrete Concept
Being a huge science fiction fan, I’ve been watching a couple of classic science fiction movies lately, a couple in particular were ‘Logans Run’ and Stanley Kubriks ‘A Clockwork Orange’, and all the futuristic landscapes in these dystopian societies were littered with giant grey architectural monuments. Ive often wondered why in visions of futuristic totalitarian societies they feature large monolithic structures with no apparent personality. Having been up the Sainsbury Centre the last couple of months for a couple of exhibitions I always noticed the stacked student housing opposite it and was curious to learn more about the style and architecture of these buildings. So after a quick research on the net on brutalism to get a brief insight into this style, I purchased a book called ‘Concrete Concept’ which was a history of brutalist architecture accompanied by 50 of the styles best examples.
The word brutalism has its origins in two meanings. Firstly is ‘Beton Brut’ which is French for ‘Raw Concrete’ and the second is the English word for brutal meaning crude or harsh. Looking like it was modelled on a paving slab, I ploughed through the book in a couple of days and it was very true to the saying ‘dont judge a book by its cover’. I was interested to learn that brutalist style buildings (especially in Europe) built after World War II were a response to rebuilding countries that were effected by the War. Using huge bits of solid concrete in rebuilding cities was a cost and time efficient solution to solving housing issues, along with expanding educational institutes and government buildings. These were seen as the future and therefore at the time of these early Sci Fi films, brutalism was a cold vision of what people thought would be the future. Later this style would become adopted all around the world to North and South America, to Japan and Australia.
Ultimately is was also a reaction to traditional architecture and I came across a quote in some further research from Brutalist architect Gerhard Kallmann which pretty much summed my thoughts up by saying ‘We have reacted against an architecture that is absolute, uninvolved and abstract. We have moved towards an architecture that is specific and concrete, involving itself with the social and geographic contact…rather than an uncommitted abstract structure that could be any place without identity or presence.’
Brutalist building were mainly considered eye sores when they were first constructed and some governments made plans to tear down and rebuild these cold and heartless geometric fortresses to create more of a visually appealing landscape. However, it has since become more acceptable and some have since become listed buildings, meaning that although the boom of the brutalist movement was brief (1950’s to the mid 1970’s), its legacy will continue. I know I’ve only touched upon the subject of brutalism but its always interesting to learn something new in other areas of design. These buildings, like the book, shouldn’t be judged on their covers. For more info check out the book ‘Concrete Concept’ by Christopher Beanland. Great read.