Brutalism.
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- čas přidán 2. 09. 2020
- A look into Architecture’s most divisive style. To some, a source of beauty; to others, everything wrong with modern architectural movements. The truth, however, lies somewhere between.
Corrections:
Talnakh is located in Russia, not Serbia. (Credit to Patrola Snova for catching this)
Fun Facts:
-Despite the similarities, Louis Kahn disliked his work being called brutalist, likely due to ideological differences and a desire to distance his work from stigma.
-While Brutalism and Soviet architecture developed separately initially, cross-contamination occurred as brutalism's socialist ideas became more popular.
-Other movies depicting Brutalist buildings include: A Clockwork Orange (1971), High Rise (2015), 1984 (1984), and Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Further Viewing:
Atmospheric Shots of Two Brutalist Buildings: • Brutalism Architecture...
The Barbican: • The Barbican: A Middle...
Brutalism and Film: • Brutalist architecture...
Soviet City Planning: • How did planners desig...
Brutalism and Control: • Control taught me to l...
In Defense of Brutalism: • The Case for Brutalist...
On the Design of Violent Spaces: • Games, Schools, and Wo...
Further Reading:
Villa Goth: www.lansstyrelsen.se/uppsala/...
The Rise and Fall of Brutalism: selo-uk.com/rise-fall-brutali...
Abandoned Brutalist Buildings: www.artspace.com/magazine/art...
Brutalism A-Z: www.theguardian.com/artanddes...
Yugoslavian Brutalist Monuments: desertedplaces.blogspot.com/20...
Inspirations for Control’s Setting: www.gamasutra.com/view/news/3...
On the Influence of Le Corbusier: www.city-journal.org/html/arc...
A Speech by Prince Charles Criticizing Brutalism: www.princeofwales.gov.uk/spee...
Music and Sounds Courtesy of:
freemusicarchive.org/
www.bensound.com/
audionautix.com/
freesound.org/
!Warning! Here's an opinion from a non-architech civilian.
Frankly I always felt like a lot of architechs specially with brutalism (except for some exemples) got really selfish by imposing to peoples cold, dark and unpleasan buildings for the sake of being trendy and "modern". In some case those structure were even completly oposed to their environement or human basic needs just to be diffrent!
As a human that had to live with brutalism throught numerous public buildings I have to say that me and my collegues always were depressed by the lack of natural light and conforting colors/materials/ornementation. If a blackout had to happen everyone's had to call it a day and get back home cause of the lack of windows in 80% of the rooms/offices.
With that said I enjoy a lot more today's architecture cause of the emphase on the human experience and the surounding environement.
(Sorry for my english it's not my first language)
people don’t hate the movement of “brutalism” from an architecture student perspective, they hate ugly soulless buildings, and many of these happen to be brutalist structures
‘To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.’ czcams.com/users/shorts3n3-r8s4zXE?feature=share
A lot brutalist structures looks like cages stocked in the chicken factory farm, makes the residents looks like a means to an end
@@woofwoof4795 Very well said!
Brutalist buildings look like they were born in a world where fascism defeated democracy
@@stephenmeier4658 Brutalist buildings were designed by communists.
Why do you think Eastern Europe & Russia are filled with architecture like this?
The fascists were building classical and imperial style symbols of strength and virility.
Go look up Albert Speer architecture to see designs and examples.
The brutalist buildings at my university were, frankly, ghastly. Rain streaked and covered in moss because of the irish climate, freezing in the winter and roasting in the summer and now leaking rain but impossible to repair. Not to mention they're just hideously ugly. That's why people hate them.
They started out ugly, and aged very poorly to boot.
sounds pretty beautiful
It wasn't ugly because of its style. *ANY* building looks ugly when poorly maintained, doesn't matter if it's traditional Japanese, Portuguese colonial, brutalist or ultra-modernist.
Hey man I love the video but you should really focus on getting a mic that doesn't muffle out what you're saying. Amazing channel idea tho and keep it up, subscribed!
Thanks! I already have a new mic on the way
Thanks for the video. Really like it. I agree with Falcone, I could not hear what you’re saying.
Would you consider re-recording and re-releasing this video? It's a great topic but quite hard to hear the narration.
I don't advocate demolishing existing brutalist buildings, just not demolishing traditional buildings to put up more ugly modernist ones. Traditional buildings needn't be and often aren't covered in rococo and flourish. They're just symmetrical and balanced, with very simple borders and frames. They're graceful and dignified. Too many architects are pretentious, tasteless and tacky and think too highly of themselves.
I don't think anyone would disagree with you on that first point. If brutalism deserves to be preserved for it's historical value, it would follow that older traditional buildings would deserve no less. The problem comes down to the owners, and whether or not the cost of renovation outweighs the cost building something new. It's even harder when a building gets demolished unexpectedly, like in a fire, or structural collapse. Do you try to imitate what was there previously, build something new in the same vein, or do you put up something quickly so that the previous tenants can move back in as soon as possible? Unfortunately preservation costs a lot of money, and most people aren't willing or able to front the costs.
The fact that brutalist building get neglected so easily is the judgement of time. If people dont like it, they dont care about it, they dont want to renovate it, or lobby for saving them, etc. When the original function is gone they dont care to repurpose the building, contrary to classical ones. They are left to rot because noone ever thinks it is worth to renovate them, it is quite likely after a demolition whatever takes it's place it will be moe pleasant. So architects can say it is fun to build hated building and they can call the generál public uneducated who dont see the "beauty" in Every concrete block. But the people who are forced to live among these don't want to do so, in the long run, they have the last word. Demolition.
@@varkonyitibor4409 That same sentiment applies to ever single classical building that has been abandoned, left to rot and deteriorate, and inevitably demolished. Stuffy old buildings that people don't want to deal with anymore because their function and aesthetic is irrelevant to how we live our lives today.
I personally prefer asymmetry and highly angular, geometric forms, so I suppose Brutalism is for me.
They're going to demolish this beautiful old 120 year-old building next fall: czcams.com/video/XbK2cigitQk/video.html I can't find the picture, but they should the piece of ticky-tacky they're going put up in its place. It looks like the made it out of plastic from the dollar store.
I always felt that the main issue with Brutalism is that, in spite of people being generally taught that less is more, that simplicity is desirable over complexity... most people not in the professional and/or artistic sphere just plain disagree. Mostly because an artist wants to create something new, while most people (not everyone, of course) instead desire something they already know they like.
As far as most people are concerned, detail is beauty, and when architects and artists aim for simplicity, it ends up completely failing to reach the minds and hearts of anyone outside of their sphere.
It really do be like that. I predict that just like all art that is appreciated today, the future will appreciate contemporary structures as soon as nostalgia kicks it.
My opinion on brutalism: it was an attempt to redefine beauty, to make the ugly beautiful; as part of a larger attempt at societal change. I think that academics saw the standards of beauty in buildings (ornate, classical) as associated with christian traditions. They imagined of a post-christian society, in their mind, had to do away with these old traditions, completely. It was miscalculated. What do you think?
Great vid!
I think you are mostly correct, though I would argue it had less to do with Christianity, and more to do with avoiding the kind of extreme nationalism that lead to the Nazis taking power.
@@WTWarchitecture but the nazi neo classical architecture has more in common with brutalism than with baroque churches
@@WTWarchitecture Brutalism is just plain UGLY. One of the ugliest buildings I've ever seen was the CCRI campus in Warwick, R.I. The exterior always looks like it has mildew stains. The interior is clumsy, and has an enormous amount of wasted space (in the cafeteria), which must cost a fortune to heat! I am no architect, but even I could design a building that is more practical and better-looking than that hideous concrete clunker.
@@126Edward Yes, very much so. If you look at Albert Speer's drawings for Germania ( Hitler's dream of a new Capital for the Third Reich) you can see that it is a stripped-down, oversized, and overbearing version of classicism, which has none of the beauty, delicacy, and delight of historical classicism. Brutalism is mostly monolithic, cold, and a reaction against beauty, and the individual. It's interesting that many developers and city planners saw it as a cheap way to build.
"It is not the government's money to take." When all these high end government structures were being erected, they obviously needed their funds to construct such buildings. A new type of architecture came about and saw how much money was being WASTED on their imitations of ancient Roman, gothic, and renaissance buildings. This new architect, being fully aware of the waste of civilian funds, made a change that made building large scale structures actually profitable. Using only what is necessary for the buildings structural value and use, which also granted more possibilities of structures.
Obviously the norm would be upset at these new architects changing around "traditional" building processes. That makes the norm's job harder so what does the norm always do? Projects their problem's onto everybody else but themselves. Even turning against their own side at times.
The underlying issue is essentially 'a home should not look like a prison'
Concrete us a hard overbearing material that works best in civic scale brutalist buildings rather than housing and community spaces
@N well you're wrong then.
I think of it not as a prison, but a fortress. To me, the warmth of a home is adequately displayed inside of it.
Mortgages are prisons.
That's what decoration is for.
I grew up in the eastern block with lots of grey and melancholic concrete shapes, with rarely any small places of comfort and I don't miss it. I read an interesting article of how beautiful cities with comfy cafes and lots of green can actually affect your everyday health and I think it's true. "Brutalism" as a design has it's place, maybe for monuments, but not for places which you would call a comfy home.
I disagree. I love Brutalism for its hard angles, geometric forms, and complete opposition to the natural world. Soviet Brutalism in particular is glorious. For my own home, which I'm already designing, I'm taking inspiration from the Russian State Scientific Center for Robotics and Technical Cybernetics. Lovely stuff!
@@jakekaywell5972 yeah you clearly never lived in Eastern Europe
Most of the times they are built in a way the look intimidating like a villain's hideout. And within few years they often end up looking worse because of the weather, pollution and lack of care.
I think brutalist buildings can shine if taken care of and they need tree/plant friends. Also find that most brutalist buildings seem to be the last ones that still had quality. Most modern buildings start to fall apart rather quickly, because of cheap materials. Personally prefer brutalist buildings over the fragile modern glass/steel buildings.
We love brutalist architecture in Latin America. It doesn’t suggest a dystopian vision to us at all, but rather a bright modern future (or what in the ‘60s and ‘70s we thought would be a bright modern future, of democratic self-governance and solidarity with Africa and Southeast Asia, untethered from the influence of U.S. empire, before Operation Condor reduced us back to a bunch of U.S. puppet dictatorships), and it’s super practical here: overhangs provide shade, big glass windows provide light, breezeways provide ventilation, concrete is cool, and most importantly, at a time when our capital and port cities began growing exponentially, it was cheap to build with and led to buildings which could house many. When I see brutalist buildings it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic for my childhood.
Man… the photos at the end of your doc, of the beautiful landmarks demolished, hit hard. I was in Chicago when the original Prentice Women's Hospital, designed by Bertrand Goldberg, was torn down - and it was tragic!! Some dull, cookie-cutter, glass-and-steel box now sits in its place. I mean, talk about dehumanizing! Look at what the soulless real estate bean-counters have done in the last 15 years to Chicago’s South Loop in general: what’s so great about a bunch of identical, monolithic eyesores - all of Mies’ construction materials, but none of his sense of precision or proportion - cropping up every hundred yards to blight the skyline?? Most of those 20th century brutalist buildings were ingenious palaces for ordinary humanity - a testament to what a rising working class, unified, could achieve for itself. And all of that‘s been traded in, in the 21st century, for the architectural equivalent of featureless office cubicles: a testament instead to how easily people are fooled into cramming themselves into identical dehumanizing boxes if you label them “freedom boxes” or “liberty condos” or however they’re tricking people into buying 80 ft² spaces with all the character of an exurban corporate campus.
Brutalism in Southeast Asia generally uses soft curves rather than sharp geometric shapes. Architects took inspiration from modern architecture in tropical cities like Honolulu or Brasilia. Tropical climate and all year round sunshine makes Brutalism architecture less depressing.
Brutalism also doesn't age as badly as is in North Europe and America
@@maxhyper2863 Good point. I love Brutalism, but I appreciate it's an acquired taste. Here in the UK, all that grey concrete against a backdrop of grey, cold and rainy weather can look a bit, well... depressing.
Brutalism is plain ugly to me here in SEA. the tropical heat just makes it more depressing and i'd prefer the equally bad but more comfortable glass boxes any day
What % of the architects who designed Brutalist buildings lived or worked in them?
It is so hated because buildings designed in this style were designed top down, and the architects thought the users should adapt to their architecture. When people actually used these these buildings their greyness, lack of details, lack of natural light, their closed and threatening outside, their incompatibility with their environment, inhumane scale and impracticality made people hate it.
Thank you for the well measured response! What I find most interesting, is that these results weren't intended by the architects (or at least were built by those that were willfully ignorant) and only came about after public exposure. The disconnect between the modernist architectural community and the public really solidified itself around this time and has persisted ever since.
@@WTWarchitecture One would hope architects didn't intend for their brutalist buildings to be closed, threatening, and inhumane. That shows the flaws of the movement. That so many architects never thought to ponder what life in these buildings and cities would be like is a profound indictment. Of course, there are artful works of brutalist architecture that deserve to be preserved. I won't shed any tears to see the rest go, however.
added to that , the fact that a lot of these buildings especially in Europe were built in the place of old buildings with established and beloved style that carried the atmosphere of the environment and the city.
Exactly. Most of these buildings come from architects who have an IDEA and everything else, including attractiveness, usability and maintainability, must be subservient to the IDEA. The remains of this attitude can be still be seen in many modern buildings; just look at the nominations for the Stirling Prize and other architectural awards over the last few decades. A good example of this sort of thing near me is the Scottish Parliament building; hideously ugly, utterly out of place with its surroundings, and full of leaking roofs, buckling doors, badly installed windows, and a laundry list of other faults.
I thought they were built for function though? How come they were so dysfunctional? Was it just a disconnect between architects/academics and 'regular people'?
I think you make a great case for the intellectual/professional architect - but I think the common danger in all 'modern' (contemporary might be more fitting) styles that is overlooked - is that something is only new for a brief period of time. It quickly looks dated. old without the charm or character, often being deemed the embodiment of a particular decade. Some of these buildings hold up many years later as an artistic expression and I believe probably always will. but many simply did not age well and were never going to. Blame it on being cheap, lacking vision from the onset, being copies of greater works, or not being loved and maintained. Some of these, at least in retrospect, made me wonder "what were they thinking??" but to be fair, the benefit of hindsight makes us all seem wiser than we might have been at the time. I know my own bias, living mostly in the states, is a contempt for short term "slap it up, tear it down" thinking. Cost over quality, flash over substance.
You are absolutely correct! The trouble is, that as we become more interconnected ideas spread faster and faster. A style could last centuries before the industrial revolution. Now a style struggles to make it more than a few decades. It's hard for anything to become established when we move on to the 'next big thing' so quickly. Established styles age like wine, but newer styles never get the chance to develop long enough for more than a handful of really great buildings to be built.
Nothing dates the past quite like its vision of the future.
@@WTWarchitecture that's a scary thought... What if Brutalism was given centuries to flourish? Would architects come up with some really cool developments to the style over time, or would everywhere just look terrifying?! 🤔
@@hamsterpouches Hard to say, if you go by fictional interpretations of the style, it inevitably gets picked up by totalitarian regimes, so maybe it's for the best it died out when it did!
@@WTWarchitecture oh yes that's true! It's always used to represent repression and control in a dystopian world. And it can dehumanise people a bit too with forcing them to use the building how the architect wants. And dehumanising is great when you want to get rid of certain groups of people... Wow I don't think I can ever come to like brutalism now!
As a young person, I was enthralled by the sleek look of Brutalistic structures. As an older adult, I find their lack of warmth and charm made them two dimensional. That is, they lack depth, history, reason for being.
The depth, history, and reason for being are all there, they just don't resonate with you which is fine.
While I enjoyed this film and with it, the welcome news that brutalism is dead, I cannot agree that we should retain these ugly, soulless buildings that were really meant to be monuments to the "creative geniuses" of the architects. I do not think that by demolishing these monstrous eyesores we are losing a part of our history and condemning us to repeat this folly. This why we study history and use photography to record the past. Many of these buildings turned out to be very expensive to build and maintain and involved huge cost overruns because the arrogance of the architects demanded that their works be unique and "groundbreaking ". These creations deteriorated early because the architects rejected tried and true methods and materials of the past. Frequently, these concrete and glass hulks failed to perform their official functions as livable homes or well designed work places. This is because their real purpose was to act as sculptures to glorify the egos of the architects who really didn't give a damn about the poor souls who had to work or worse, live in them. The comparison of brutalism to the Gothic I do not think is apt. It was only hundreds of years after these glorious cathedrals were built that Renaissance artists dissed them as Gothic because these artists had become inspired by classical designs. There is nothing warm, inspirational or even honest about brutalism. The concerns of the clients and the people who actually had to use these ugly buildings were not the concern of the architects. These strange and ugly testimonials to arrogant selfishness are best left in photographs for future generations to ponder why so many people were taken in by humbug, uncaring architects.
"There is nothing warm, inspirational or even honest about brutalism."
That's just like, all your opinion, man. Especially that last part, Brutalism is more honest with itself than your are with your own assertions being absolute truth.
@@said8784 "that's your opinion" dude brutalism litterely is trying to be soulless for the sake of "progress"
one of the most creative uses of brutalist architecture was as the setting for one of the Planet of the Apes movies. I remember Caesar running from gorillas (presumably, I don't remember a lot of the plot) through a "city" of brutalist buildings, elevated walkways, outside stairways, all suitably hard, cold, angular, and deserted. All very brutal and intimidating. Also, it reminded me of the buildings at my university.
Scenes from "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" (1972) were filmed in Century City in Los Angeles. This "city within a city," a recently completed business and residential district, was a former backlot of 20th Century Fox. The new concrete buildings and plazas were used to illustrate the harsh, militaristic future envisioned in the film.
@@chrisb2358hmmm
This video tempts me get involved in demolition.
I'll freely admit I'm becoming more noticeably set in my ways as I grow older but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy hearing other people's opinions and trying to view things from their perspectives. I'll be honest I think brutalism is an exercise in self-imposed limitation and in the process it misses the bigger picture. To me it's shape without color, form without function and goals without purpose. But as the saying goes the world would be a terribly boring place if everyone's opinions were like mine.
Right. Instead we have brutalist and other modern architecture to thank for our boredom.
I completely agree with brutalism been shape without color, but not with been form without function, I believe it's actually the opposite...it's function without form, cheers.
@@SteveNaranjo very little function. Impractical and poorly constructed typically.
@@evanfunk7335 it's not what I got from what is said starting at 02:24 mark and onward.
@@SteveNaranjo i speak from experience having to be in brutalist buildings. They leak, are cold and dark, make walking a chore, and are generally unpleasant. They tend to waste land area
The main problem I have with brutalism is that the raw concrete surfaces show ugly signs of wear, when exposed to changing seasons after just a couple of years. And even when new, those structures look like "abandoned" before finishing construction, or "we ran out of money to put a plaster, so we will sell this rough construction as a feature, not a bug". I have little problem with the shapes and "monstrosity" of some brutalist buildings. But I have a big problem accepting the ugly, weathered, rough concrete surface.
Also I do not consider prefabricated panel houses to be brutalist. Even when they were built, they had some coating, they were not meant to be ugly grey buildings where you should see the concrete surfaces. Maybe some of them were, or some of their elements, but all "panelák" houses I know and grew up with in Bratislava had a plaster coating, some even had little stones embedded into the concrete panels. Contrary to brutalist architecture, which is in my opinion based on the raw, rough concrete surface that remains when you remove the casing. I have no problem with this look on industrial purely functional structures like bridges on motorways in the middle of nowhere (where no people live nearby). But I really hate the look at weathering concrete surfaces on buildings which are supposed to have people in them, or near them. They are just ugly. Raw concrete is the worst "surface" material I can think of.
I love brutalism because it looks so alien and out of this world. They look more like modern sculptures, the good examples at least
Oh boy wait until you hear about Halo, on Alpha Halo in Halo 1, Delta Halo in Halo 2, and The Ark/ installation 00 in Halo 3 which were built by an ancient alien race called the forerunners millions of years ago, the halo rings are known for their gorgeous natural landscapes and dotted across are clearly artificial structures heavily utilising brutalist architecture and with unknown purpose.
Horrifically ugly sculptures, maybe,. But who wants to live/work in a sculpture when they could have a pleasant, functional building.
@@Michael75579 me maybe! Brutalist buildings always seemed so clean and strong to me.
@@Michael75579 Also me. In fact, I'm designing my own home in such a fashion.
@@Michael75579 ok boomer
Brutalism was very popular during Apartheid in South Africa. They were a perfect representation of the country’s dehumanizing, cruel & cold approach to its people.
‘To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.’ czcams.com/users/shorts3n3-r8s4zXE?feature=share
Apartheid was dehumanising, cruel and wrong without brutalism which in other parts of the world had and still have the exact opposite outset, especially when married with green landscaping.
Very enjoyable presentation. I grew up in Northern California in the small city of Fremont. The city hall of my youth was of Brutalist design and roundly hated by most of the suburbanites in the community (Google Fremont City Hall circa 1970). I toured the building as a schoolboy and was enthralled by the design in spite of knowing how unpopular (read ugly) it was in the eyes of the community. Unfortunately it was constructed on a section of the Hayward Fault and deemed unsafe in a potential 7.0 earthquake and sat empty for many years in the 1980's and was finally demolished and replaced. I don't embrace all Brutalism inspired buildings, but I certainly find many of them quite ingenious and aesthetically engaging. Thank you!
Its just depressing though. It make me sad to look at and not in a good, melancholic, thoughtful way. In a 'clinical depression is exacerbated by these buildings' kind of way.
Interesting. When I look at a Brutalist building, I see confidence and security. A building that dares nature to even attempt to destroy it, even after we're long gone. A reminder that we have finally triumphed over the natural world.
The time of Brutalism coincided with the rise of soulless city planning. No consideration for how a building would be used by people, how it would integrate into its urban surroundings functionally and esthetically. If Brutalist buildings were built with less narcissism and more care, they wouldn't have been so unpopular. I would implicate narcissism as the main sin of art since the early 20th century, but we feel the effects more in architecture than other art forms because we have no choice but to live with the results.
As if narcissism hasn't been a driving force in art since it first began to be practised. For instance, most of what we think of as "traditional" art pushes a heavily Euro-centric view, listing all other viewpoints as being inferior and thus immoral. To say that modernist art forms such as Suprematism and Constructivism are narcissistic while also ignoring the point I raised earlier is disingenuous at best. Also, I prefer Brutalism precisely because of its diametric opposition to its surroundings.
The one brutalist structure I'll never forget is a prominent "feature" of the University of Rhode Island -- the Fine Arts Center. As a student there in the '80s, I called it the "Wolfsschanze" (i.e., "Wolf's Lair", Hitler's HQ at Rastenburg). It just seemed to fit, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would defend the concrete eyesore. As I write (Sept. 2021), there are plans to "rehabilitate" the structure after decades of neglect. About friggin time.
It just looks so depressingly soulless, like the only people who are expected to inhabit them are already dead on the inside. Places to survive, but not to live.
I'm here because I wanted to know more about the style of building in control , I love the look , especially when mixed with plant life and other parts of nature . Some of the medical buildings and the collage local to me use brutal architecture and I have always enjoyed looking at them.
*college
@@VictorSneller I have been drawing up a brutalist house design for my current property lol I love it .
@@synon9m ya sorry my spelling is crap , I can firm I didn't go to collage for language lol.
Socialist prefab building are somewhat different. They werent designed to be brutalist, simply prefab concrete was the easiest and fastest way to build a lot of homes quickly to keep up with the population growth but also to keep cities dense and walkable.
True. But they are depressing as hell if you have to live in one, especially if it's repeated ad infinitum.
@@gerardvila4685 I live in one. While they might look unappealing from the outside, their interiors are often nicely renovated, as the vast majority of flats is actually owned by the people who live in them. The problem with the panelak I live in is that it is from the late 1980s and the outer panels have thermal insulation as part of their construction, so there is little pressure to "cover" the "ugly" facade with insulation and a nice finish. A return of such an investment is very long and since the flat owners have to pay for it and quite a bit of them are retired or have a lower income, they simply do not bring up the cash.
@@erikziak1249 Thanks for the feedback... my memories of this kind of building are from Moscow suburbs a long time ago. I was a bit homesick for France, it was dark and cold in winter, and the architecture felt completely soulless. On the other hand I was earning good money as an expat worker and the people were great.
Traditional buildings last much longer and make much more economical sense than brutalism. I live in Vietnam, after the war we built many brutalist apartment buildings to house people. They were an assault on surrounding landscape and over time they just decreased the value of the areas. We've been replacing them with shiny glass towers, and I guess they won't last 30 years either. Meanwhile the old district is still the richest and most expensive area of the city. Over 200 years, the beautiful French buildings are still here, they have been used as museums, shops, court houses etc... and they will continue to be repurposed in the future.
@@ROCKSTAR3291 Actually, the opposite is true. Those classic French buildings from wood and plaster you mention are only still standing because of extensive maintenance. All-concrete structures such as Brutalist ones don't decay nearly as much, meaning less overall maintenance is required. Especially in humid climates such as yours.
Form should follow function, but how a building looks, ages and makes people feel are functions, so looking nice is not optional.
Beautiful video! So relaxing, thoughtful and well crafted. Keep walking and keep us posted!
You need to fix the audio of your video man
Sure these buildings might be nice to look at it but they’re dehumanising to live in. That’s fundamentally why people don’t like brutlaism.
I don't like brutalism or most modern architecture in general. All these glass and steel buildings look ugly. Living in a giant concrete bunker looks like something from George Orwell's 1984. I like classical and Georgian architecture.
The thing is....no one can make classic bulding, no builders have time to perverse it
The balancing between background music and your voice seems very off and at times it made it hard for me to hear you.
Otherwise, it was a very informative video, and I'm now subscribed. Thank you!
There is no need to respect a brutalist building because nothing you do accidentally or even purposefully will harm it in any meaningful way. And because these impenetrable titans are the cheapest to produce, it makes sense that most of them are soulless constructs. These structures are likely to last longer than you, your family, and your children's families down generations. Assets of people you'll never know, installed without any actual consideration for who lives there, and produced on a dime, Its no wonder why it's mostly hated. There are more modern installations that at least pretend that you're considered but comes of as patronizing. At least Brutalism is honest about how little you matter in the presence of Goliath.
Boston city hall is a good looking building, but I don't know what it's like to work in. I work in a brutalist building and it's confusing and claustrophobic.
Brutalist Buildings all locking like main headquarters of villains 😂😂😂
What people who do essay like videos, or essays, or studies, in short academic work, fail to realize the most simple of truths. The public, doesn't care about the subtle nuances of purely academic thought processes on any subject, eg architecture. The public hates brutalism on a subconscious level. If you ask them why they use simple words such as "ugly" "cold" because they can't express their thoughts that are sourced in their subconscious fully. And that in my opinion is a massive marker of sorts. When so many people hate something on the subconscious level, its a strong indication that said thing for whatever reason, goes against some known or unknown part of what makes humans, humans. If you ask me personally i would say that brutalist and post-modern architecture if demoting the human spirit instead of promoting it. When i see designs like that, i don't need to meet the person who made them, i can feel his misanthropy and self loathing through his work. And i believe people can too. When people visit the Parthenon, which is also a linear building with straight columns, they don't feel that way, they feel awe. They feel inspired. Why? Maybe we will never know. Maybe its a lost bit of knowledge. But i think we should gravitate towards styles that make people feel inspired to raise themselves, instead of designs that make people feel suicidal. Even if we do it on principal and without a well defined and articulated reason.
You definitely bring up some good points. The idea of the subconscious affecting our 'gut instinct' makes a lot of sense. I take offense at your prescription of brutalists/post-modernists as self-loathing misanthropes however. There may be some buildings designed to inspire fear (Albert Speer's replanning of Berlin comes to mind, as well as Libeskind's Jewish Museum for a completely different reason) but the idea that anyone in a field made specifically for the progression of humanity could loathe humanity I find ludicrous. You can argue all day that a building comes of as misanthropic, but to ascribe that feeling to the architect is folly. If a building is misanthropic, fine. I can fully accept -and on occasion agree- with that. I also disagree with your comparison to the Parthenon. The Parthenon is beautiful not because of its original design, but because of its age. It is like standing at the edge of a cliff. nature has eaten away at it until it appears as if nature had created it. Knowing that it was made by man enhances its wonder, it is not the source of it. All it takes is a visit the the complete replica in Nashville to realize this. Despite my disagreements however, we agree on your final point. All architects must strive to better the world, even if it means stumbling along the way.
In that case, the general public is wrong. They are regressing back into the animal insincts from which we came.
@@jakekaywell5972 If we are going to use the term "animal instincts" in such a demeaning context, which you do, then we should a priori accept that all things natural are inferior to everything we do, and therefore we should accept other concepts as well, such as animal abuse, deforestation, ecosystem destruction, pollution etc.
@@StaRMaestroS I do understand and accept those concepts you list though, as those are products of our baser, cruder, irrational, animalistic instincts. I just don't see how those are relevant to my original comment.
@@jakekaywell5972 Because you said that the general public is wrong, in the implied context of brutalism being a departure from animal instincts. If that's the case, and our animal instincts that make us hate it are so wrong, that necessarily means that everything natural is beneath our might, and destroying it doesn't matter. Who cares about the amazon when we can put futuristic buildings all over it. Preserving it is just animal instinct. It's just a regression.
I remember when I first saw Brutalist architecture at the Queens College Student Union where we hung out in the early seventies. Initially it reminded me of ancient Roman architecture with the exposed concrete, and they had planned to clad it with marble panels. Never happened of course, as it wasn't the intention. The concrete aged and streaked through the years and I have grown to like its massive stripped down look.
Jeez, I was a kid when Montreal's Habitat was built, and it was quite the talk of the town, in a positive way - it seemed so modern and innovative. So I was startled to see it pictured among examples of Brutalism! It always seemed so creative to me, despite the concrete and the block-y esthetic. I don't find it depressing or dehumanizing, like some of the other examples. Now I can see the connection with Brutalism, though.
Great documentary! One advice: improve audio and let pictures last a bit longer
Cheers from Italy
Brutalist architecture is hated because it scowls and sneers at you. Through clinched teeth, it snarls, "I DARE you to question why someone who's obviously smarter than you decided to build me."
I'm fairly certain you're projecting.
I don't know about everybody else, but I always wanted to live under an interstate overpass.
Would a multi-storey carpark suffice? (Oh, wait... That's actually happened...)
Nice video, but the music sounds too load.
You can see the unfinished concrete in all these 70s buildings doesn't age gracefully. It's streaky and cracked, attracts graffiti and looks shoddy compared to old-fashioned bricks or ashlar masonry of a similar age. As it feels impermanent, so it's easy to demolish. Social housing estates, schools, shopping malls need to serve the people that use them. Brutalist structures, when not on a human scale, and not providing natural human social spaces, are alienating. From the 60s on, there's a disjunct between disdained vernacular architecture that connects over centuries and makes a city look homely and lived-in, and elite architects and city planners with their oh-so-refined sensibilities and godlike power. It's not all bad, though. Modernism per se, when done well, can be as inviting as any other style. I am glad that some of the worst examples of it are now gone, because of the arrogance that built them in the first place. City planning is now generally more inclusive than it's been previously, and while there are some misfires, public buildings are now generally better as a result, both to look at and use.
For the last 50 years I have considered the Barbican towers the ugliest residential buildings in London. They are a real eyesore on the skyline. I have also hated the Queen Elizabeth Hall / Hayward Gallery complex in London's Southbank Centre. I first went to QEH as a teenager in the mid-70s to attend a Kinks concert. 35 years later I worked there for over a year and got to know every inch. It did not grow on me, quite the opposite. The standing joke was, "It'll look nice when it's finished."
As a child I lived in a town in southern Hertfordshire called Hoddesdon. At about the time that my family moved there in 1963, construction of a new town centre consisting of shops, a residential tower block and a multi-storey car park -- all in poured concrete -- were under way. I spent much of my youth there. I despised it then and I despise it now.
In my mind it will always be associated with negative feelings. The British climate being the grey, wet, cold concentrate of unpleasantness that it is most of the year was only made so much worse by all that horrible, unfeeling, totalitarian concrete covered in black mould with stalactites hanging down from exposed leaking pipes.
I later encountered similar at Edmonton Green Shopping Centre and the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre. All three are from the same time period. All three have repeatedly undergone extensive remodelling in attempts to make them more suitable for humans. As I write (early Sept. 2021), the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre has just been torn down and the rubble is being cleared. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Thank you for your efforts sir, I’ve subscribed to your channel and looking forward to your future videos, I’m sure it’s not easy at all so just take your time I’m not going anywhere,,,
Note: I wish you can improve the voice quality a bit
I see the argument for keeping Brutalist buildings, but honestly I think the only lesson Brutalism and Modernism more generally has to offer is "don't build ugly crap." I've seen it claimed on other videos (and I believe them) that ugly buildings especially undecorated materials we didn't encounter through evolution (e.g. unfinished concrete) can have a direct negative impact on the mental health of the poor suckers that have to look at it. Hence a near objective case can be made for more use of natural-ish stone, wood etc as well as ornamentation that is designed to induce a sense of wellbeing in the person who has to look at it. I think we should keep maybe 1 in 10 Brutalist buildings and not build any more. Anywhere.
I love brutalism when it comes to public buildings such as museums, colleges, or apartments, the apartment i grew up with my family had a very brutalist appearence so maybe thats also nostalgia speaking louder
I went to architecture school in the 1970s and we were laughing at the nascent postmodernism. We took brutalism for granted, alongside constructivism and other modernist movements (metabolism, Archigram etc.)
During my studies, I went to Japan, to see brutalist buildings of Tange, Isozaki, Kikutake, Kurokawa etc. Before the trip, I was fond of the style. But seeing those buildings just 5-to-10 years old, all deteriorated by the hot and humid Japanese climate, that was really depressing.
Somebody mentioned plants like ivy over the béton-bruit walls. That’s a great idea! Keep the ugly buildings standing (demolition is indeed expensive) but cover it in greenery. Ricardo Bofill’s La Fábrica in Barcelona could serve as a successful example. But then - the structure was an old cement factory originally!
I agree completely! It seems that the architecture of today is focused on adaptive reuse, so I think its an interesting question of how to treat these older buildings. You could try to restore them, but I think it may be even more tempting to breath new life into them with a fresh set of eyes looking at how the project could be reused.
Ivy works for Wrigley Field; but no amount of "lipstick" can help the Brutalist "pig."
@@davidlafleche1142 Greenery can really change these buildings though, it gives them warmth and brings nater closer to us.
@@davidlafleche1142 Heavy disagree; brutalist buildings look amazing with greenery surrounding. Aesthetically, it cannot be beat.
@@TessHKM Victorian-Era houses beat anything and everything.
I can't pin point precisely why, but Brutalist Architecture always made me feel bad, sick even, as if I smelled a foul odor that made me nauseous.
Maybe it's growing up in Eastern Europe where on top of them being ugly by design they were also poorly built, maintained and 40 years of aging made them positively GHASTLY.
Add in the typical winter in large Polish city with mud covered streets and choking smoke hanging low in the air and you have an environment designed to cause depression...
People don't hate "Brutalism". They hate ugly buildings that spoil the landscape. There are a number of cities in Poland that successfully renovated the old "Commie Blocks".
Blame the property owner for not taking care of it
4:04 are this vents so air flow in and cool the building
I would have liked to hear more, bout the music was so loud it was painful to understand what the guy was actually saying
This style is great if you're going for a totalitarian dystopia vibe. It looks grungy after a few years too.
The Egg building in Beirut was a functioning cinema and not 'unfinished'. It was partially demolished following post-civil war reconstruction efforts, when activists stopped the demolition and insisted on its preservation instead of it's replacement. Today it is an emodiment of the current political deadlock and a vibrant gathering place for the ongoing popular revolution.
That's very interesting. I must admit that I didn't a whole lot of research on this building in particular before putting it into the video, but knowing that it isn't just sitting empty and neglected is very good news!
It's like ever other form of architecture. There are bad examples and good examples. The brutalist school near me us horrible. But there are some great brutalist buildings around the city. It's not all clunky looking.
I worked on the building of Alexandria Road.
Because its all concrete the wiring was installed in conduit embedded in the concrete. Anyone wanting to add extra outlets or lights now will be having a nightmare dealing with concrete walls and ceilings.
Why is it hated? It offends the eye.
Btw, in case you're interested, 'Le Corbusier' is French, so the 'Le' isn't pronounced 'lay'; rather, its closest English equivalent is probably 'Look' with the 'k' omitted. (Not exactly, but it's better than 'lay'!)
The name says it all. It’s brutal!
I have been to Chandigarh(Designed by Corbusier), and few of his buildings in other parts. I have to say when I first saw those building I was surprised for the shapes and forms I was seeing and when I got inside it was like when those kids get in to the chocolate factory but after spending some time there to understand the form and shapes of these building it felt too much to your face with material used and with Indian climate these building did not support easy climate control and if you look at Chandigarh that city look out place in India I mean I love the urbanism there but hard and rough concrete is really not pleasing to the eye, specially when its not serving its full purpose although city make a lot with its greenery.
Thank you for bringing us this excellent and very informative video, it is much appreciated by the people.
Gee, why is it so hated? I know it is very ugly. I know it is cold and inhuman. I know it is dispiriting and depressing. But, why, oh why, is it so hated?
You gave the answers!
Interesting. When I look at a Brutalist building, I see confidence and security. A building that dares nature to even attempt to destroy it, even after we're long gone. A reminder that we have finally triumphed over the natural world.
Can anyone tell me why Brutalist buildings have small windows? Can't find the answer anywhere online!
It really depends. I personally wouldn't call it a general trend even. Looking at a lot of English council housing (think Robin Hood Gardens), most of them have large windows, especially for the time. If you look at Soviet housing that features smaller windows, much of that was a combination of climate (heating a room with large windows is very expensive) and cost (large panes of glass are must pricier than concrete). As for when it is an aesthetic choice, it's hard to say. It could be influenced by local tradition (traditional construction methods favored small windows) or just the choice of the architect. In buildings like theatres with a more inward focused program, you cant have large windows where the auditorium is, so some architects tend to translate this to the full exterior. There was also a tendency in church architecture to use slits in the exterior skin to let in small but intense amounts of light that would flood over walls, leading to much blockier exteriors. Raw concrete doesn't reflect a lot of light on its own, so the same size windows may feel smaller than a room painted white. Brutalism's tendency to avoid ornament also makes it much more obvious when there are few/very small windows, so it could be an unconscious bias.
@@WTWarchitecture interesting thank you. This is extrapolating now but what you said about inward focused - do you think maybe architects wanted people in, for example, an office to be more focused on their work and less distracted by what's outside the window? Seems in keeping with other things you've said about basically forcing people to behave how you want them to. Squeezing what you can out of the workforce without much regard to their wellbeing or how their productivity might be affected in the long run.
And yes I went to a church like that and stopped going because the ventilation for covid was non existent!
I think that most architects try to have people's best interests in mind, although I can't pretend that is the case universally. A lot of office design is focused on how to maximize the size of floor space without making really dark rooms. That's why most big office towers today are completely sheathed in glass. That being said, there was a weird crossover period between the invention of electricity and when people realized (or more accurately when CEOs starting caring) that artificial lighting wasn't the same as natural light, when you would get buildings filling up parcels completely, creating matrix-esqe rooms of infinite cubicles. One of my professors in undergrad actively stopped us from using the word 'force' and substitute 'encourage' because it's more accurate to the ways that architecture can affect people.
@@WTWarchitecture yeah I'm sure the majority of architects now have people's interests in mind. I just got the impression that that was less common back then. I think in general there's more awareness of individual needs, wellbeing etc these days. Which fits with what you say about lighting too.
This is a very good video. Thanks for making it! :)
Brutalism as I understand it is functional utilitarian design using cheap bulk materials without facades or veneers.
As long as human habitation is designed function and beauty is recognized as important for human habitation, brutalism has the potential to house people cheaply in beautiful highly functional buildings. In America humanity is reserved for the wealthy, so the poor get buildings not suitable for habitation and the wealthy don't want brutalism because it's use of cheap bulk materials without facades or veneers will always look cheap.
Some of those are practical shapes, some do loom and feel unsteady. Then why no windows on so many?
the concept is nice, daring, but the results are simply ugly. I understand architecture SHOULD focus on people in general, BUT if some people build things merely for themselves, then it's no surprise that other people don't like it. I love architecture. I'm a journalist and a writer and a songwriter and a traveller. I adore colonial styles, arabesques, even simple plain white houses. to me, Venice is the most beautiful city in the world. I'm from Brazil (do you know Niemeyer?). well, people should see what Niemeyer did to houses and buildings. they're terrible! the guy didn't think about rain, air circulation... his drawings are beautiful (he was close to an uncle I had), but not functional. Brasilia, 'our' DC, looks like a spaceship and the first and only cultural phenomenon to emerge from that was PUNK rock. that says a lot, doesn't it? in one word? DYSTOPIA ;)
Hold up, The gothic cathedrals of Europe were not seen as blights on the cities of europe. One Italian architect called them Gothic because he personally disliked the German influence in northern Italy and wanted to rally support for Northern Italy by emphasizing Italy's Roman past. it was more political than anything else. Gothic Architecture remained popular for centuries, even during the classical revivals, "gothic survival" remained until it experienced its own revival.
brutalism is not like gothic.
During the transition into the renaissance the Gothic style became more and more distasteful to builders. While yes, it was labeled 'Gothic' by an Giorgio Vasari, it wasn't just him that felt that way. The Gothic style of ornamentation relied a lot more on local masons and laborers, so sculpture and traceries were more connected to the 'barbaric' local traditions than to that of the masters in Italy. Italy had almost entirely skipped over the Gothic era due to their connection to classical Roman forms. When the renaissance finally left Italy, this feeling spread throughout most of Europe. In the 1600's, a French poet named Moliere wrote an entire poem disparaging the style. This wasn't just one Italian architect, it was a part of the zeitgeist.
I would argue that those feelings mimic a lot of the feelings people have towards brutalism. And yes, there remained Gothic churches being built throughout the renaissance, but there have also been brutalist structures built in the time since the 1970's. Admittedly, 'blight' may have been a strong word. I was just trying to highlight the fact that if Gothic architecture had been torn down to be replaced by renaissance works, that would have been a great loss. I was equating this great loss to what we may be loosing by taking down brutalist buildings today.
@@WTWarchitecture For some reason, CZcams has started sending me links to religious services from some of the cathedrals in Germany. It's very interesting to see how the inside of the church has been modernized while the external "shell" had been reconstructed to look as much as the preceding structure.
I think a key aspect of brutalism in the modern mind is the use of concrete. A simple oversight is that concrete as an aesthetic material is absolutely not low maintenance and relatively short lived. While stone structures gain an interesting aspect as the stones weather and acquire lichen and moss, it is the opposite effect with concrete. Concrete is defined by its pristine lines, not the naturalistic texture of stone. When it acquires staining and lichen it quickly darkens and looks dirty and even unhealthy. As it begins to chip due to freeze weathering it rapidly becomes unrecoverable without significant effort. So even if we allow the possibility that a new concrete (brutalist or not) building has a certain aesthetic appeal, that appeal will be lost within a few years without cleaning, and disappear even more permanently within a decade due to the poor weathering characteristics of the concrete aesthetic.
I feel there is room to argue that an unconsidered aspect of the brutalist approach (being 'form follows function') is that the buildings themselves are by logical conclusion meant to be inherently short lived, since function will change within a few decades. So one could argue that the choice of concrete for the buildings is a 'meta-statement' on the initial philosophy. These are buildings meant to fulfill the purpose of the moment in an interesting and efficient way, not something meant to be conserved on artistic merit. On that basis, brutalism is very fitting to the culture of 'disposability' that it lived within, since it is disposable architecture.
I live in a city with one of the highest concentrations of Brutalist buildings in the world. You've shown none of the buildings from over here in this video, but you still gave me 11 minutes of feeling at home. Raw concrete is only cold and imposing for those who are not used to it. It feels familiar, warm and cozy to me.
I enjoyed your video. Not to be too picky, but Le is pronounced “luh” not “lay”
Wrong categorization.
Brutalism is not the cement name. Mean - scale, oversizeness, proportions, dominated mass, disproportions, exhibitionism - that things make hate it. Same shit as everything in colonial or imperial styles - cement fields , hubs etc.
Hrushevka is wrong example. This is ordinary constructivism with cement facade , not more. Glass/cement proportion is decent.
Why are there people who like brutalist buildings? For the same reason why there are people who love pain, which we call masochists. Those who like brutalism are maybe a little bit like them.
Why people like beer?
Wurster Hall on the campus of U.C. Berkeley is in the brutalist style. Ironically, it houses the College of Environmental Design (which includes Architecture).
I think the problem most people have is that are labelled as brutalist even building that are just utilitarian cubes of concrete without no artistic value, while most actual brutalist building are quite beautiful, also they usally degrade vary bad just cleaning the concrete to its original lighter color would make a great deal of difference for the beauty of the building
Post war 🏥 hospitals in my country looks creepy and scary due to its brutalist design not to mention that Ghost 👻 and other elementals are living inside the ominous building... compare to hospitals with modern design it attracted a more positive vibes to the patients
You shoulda put Raúl Goddard in your photographs, he was one of the most important architects in Costa Rican
Interesting, he didn't appear in any of my research. His Catedral Sagrado Corazón de Jesús in Limon is quite striking. Thank you for bringing his work to my attention!
Well done, good sir.
Thank you!
Why no mention of the second Goetheanum in Basil, Switzerland, designed by Rudolf Steiner. Look at the building, then look at the date: years ahead of its time.
I have been to the Goetheanum, and while it very nice, I consider it more a work of expressionism than brutalism. Ahead of its time for sure!
A LOT of brutalist buildings would be so much more interesting and "beautiful" if only they wouldn't have had a doctrine of not using color in the buildings, and going just with the color of the building material itself, so concrete...
I mean I like a lot of brutalist buildings, but the stained concrete looks just really bad. Just resurface them using more colors than just "concrete' and they're still good enough for me! (But not for most of other people, sadly)
Colour would make all our cities greater a beautiful rainbow rather than a drab grey ocean
I really like exposed concrete and its texture, but I think it really needs to be elevated by shape, lighting and accessories (decoration, greenery, furniture, etc), otherwise it looks cheap and depressing. It's true that the correct use of colors can make a brutalist building look full of life. The work of Ricardo Bofill is an example of masterfully using color.
Exactly. The ugly, stained concrete surface is what makes most of those buildings ugly. They look lie unfinished, abandoned, rough constructions. And I do not think that a simple "layer of paint" would do the job. The concrete surface is ugly in its very essence.
Look up Luis Barragan.
Most styles age well, brutalism doesnt, it looks worse with each year
Strongly disagree. Brutalist buildings age better than most others styles precisely because of their hard, angular forms and concrete construction.
Habitat '67 is brutalist? I always just thought it was neat looking
Everyone? You lost me in the first sentence. Instead ask: why was and is brutalism so loved?
Personally every complaint a person could have about brutalism is why I love it. It's dystopic and inhospitable.
Yeah great, until you have to live it it...
Okay it is a good choice to build prisons but not cities.
@@varkonyitibor4409 I live in Dallas where the county jail house is a big tall and thin brick box with slit windows in the upper floors. You couldn't mistake it for anything other than a jail. Technically speaking, it's not brutalist, because there's no exposed concrete, but still.....Of course, the city hall was designed by I.M Pei and is wonderful!
@@varkonyitibor4409 actually its shit for prisons too, creating a welcoming aesthetic helps far better at rehabilitating prisoners
Yes! That’s why I love it too. It gives me this slight chill whenever I see a particularly dystopian, but awesome, building. It’s so great for photography, which I love to do.
Unite d'habitation--a Mondrian building!
I think of Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation shows (THUNDERBIRDS, CAPTAIN SCARLET) as the brutalist school of kiddie TV shows...
Reveling in gracelessness, and ensconsing it in raw concret.
Looking at some pictures of this style is far removed from the reality of living in an entire city designed by the lunatic mind of Le Corbusier.
I speak of Chandigarh.
IT'S DEPRESSING!
Went to college there in the early 80s, and GTFO after a year. Did the remainder by correspondence course, while enjoying the magnificent city of New Delhi ( Lutyens and Baker, architects).
Well, for one thing, it's just outright BRUTAL!
i think there is something very nice aesthetics when plants and greens covered the concrete mass
Minimalism is one thing; brutalism is another thing entirely. People often remark how beautiful, but sterile minimalist architecture is. But with brutalism they actually recoil.
This style of architecture can be likened to a castle; all stone, often few windows, rough, angular shapes. Hardly what you would describe as welcoming. If that's what you're going for, fine. I can't imagine what kind of function it would serve. Bottom line; no one wants to even look at such an edifice, let alone enter one. Architects and city planners clearly weren't consulting the folks who were fated to live and work in these monstrosities. Shame on them all.
Cool but one minute in the sound quality made me crazy
The slide that says Alexandria Road Estate should say Alexandra Road. Although I don't much care for brutalism generally, I do like some examples including this one.
great video. music too loud though.
It is hated because it destroys all sense of craftsmanship and makes one reside or work in an oversized cesspool. It is an utter atrocity. It is like much of modern art, loved by those who make it because they lack the ability to compete in a more conservative art form, and by those who are fools with their money because they think they will be viewed as sophisticated, and hated by everyone else.
Interesting. When I look at a Brutalist building, I see confidence and security. A building that dares nature to even attempt to destroy it, even after we're long gone. A reminder that we have finally triumphed over the natural world and have freed ourselves from scrambling in the muck. I also love modern art, my personal favorite style being Russian Constructivism.
@@jakekaywell5972 Lol! I can just see you adoring the cesspool buried under my lawn.
@@lmyrski8385 That's an irrelevant tangent if I've ever read one.
@@jakekaywell5972 Yet somehow fitting.
@@lmyrski8385 Except not at all. You're merely feeding into your own delusions about what is and isn't "acceptable" art. That's also a page straight out of the Nazi textbook by the way. They took modernist works and those made by Jewish artists and hung them in special exibits as "degenerate works". Not exactly a standard to hold yourself to.
I love your presentation..
It depends on HOW it’s used… if it’s used on a high-rise apartment building, it’s going to look bad as hell. The concrete will eventually lose its color and become more black from grime buildup.
We hate it because is measurable radioactive. Plus, its surfaces lacks any grip to escalate on. Image being on the top of a monstrosity like that. How do you climb it down?! It still gave me nightmares... PS. Just picture it filled with some dark water/ substance...😢
Le-Corbusier hated people. His architecture he designed to reflect on just how much
Except he himself lived in a house even more radically designed than his projects. Your theory doesn't hold water.
@@jakekaywell5972 He could hardly live in a Gothic revival mansion when he was trying to convince cities to build his overbearing concrete dreck
@@salus1231 As if the Gothic style isn’t overbearing already and as if your original point hasn’t already been refuted.
@@jakekaywell5972 At least Gothic is aesthetic unlike the concrete brutalist
Piles. If you like them,fine,but most people hate it hence it has very few champions and virtually no one cares when they get demolished unlike Gothic were people often try hard to save them for future generations to enjoy. That’s right, enjoy, a word you will never see in the same sentence as brutalism
@@salus1231 Both Gothic and Brutalism are actual design schools. While I find Gothic design ugly, you find Brutalism ugly. That's fine. However, I enjoy Brutalism. There you go. The word "enjoy" used in the same sentence as the word "Brutalism". Also, people and movements dedicated to preserving historic Brutalist structures for future generations to appreciate and enjoy do exist. SOSBrutalism is one such group. I'm glad, because their work is important. Brutalism forever!