Why I Like Brutalism and You Should Too
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- čas přidán 24. 01. 2024
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+ Thanks to Mireille Roddier and Marina Bourderonnet, for lending their French expertise.
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+ Video co-produced and edited by Evan Montgomery
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_Description_
As an architecture professor, I'm diving into the often misunderstood world of Brutalist architecture. Think of me as your guide through the stark, concrete landscapes that stir up strong feelings. We're tackling everything from the commanding presence of Boston City Hall to the unforgettable works of Le Corbusier, shedding light on why these "concrete beasts" spark such debate.
I'll walk you through five key points that either make you nod in admiration or truly understand why some people love this style. We'll start with the real story behind the term 'Brutalism', dive into its roots in utopian socialism, and discuss why concrete isn't just practical-it's pivotal. By comparing Brutalist buildings' lasting, textured exteriors with the ephemeral nature of modern construction, we'll wrap up with a lively talk on Brutalism's role in both movies and the architectural world.
This video is for everyone: whether you're a Brutalism enthusiast, skeptic, or just curious about architecture. Prepare to see Brutalism in a new light, much like Chicago's own Malort, it's an acquired taste that's definitely worth exploring. Don't forget to hit like, share, and subscribe for more distinctive perspectives on architecture and design. Your support enables us to deliver top-notch content that cuts through the conventional chatter. #Brutalism #Architecture #DesignDebate
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_About the Channel_
Architecture with Stewart is a CZcams journey exploring architecture’s deep and enduring stories in all their bewildering glory. Weekly videos and occasional live events breakdown a wide range of topics related to the built environment in order to increase their general understanding and advocate their importance in shaping the world we inhabit.
_About Me_
Stewart Hicks is an architectural design educator that leads studios and lecture courses as an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also serves as an Associate Dean in the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts and is the co-founder of the practice Design With Company. His work has earned awards such as the Architecture Record Design Vanguard Award or the Young Architect’s Forum Award and has been featured in exhibitions such as the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Design Miami, as well as at the V&A Museum and Tate Modern in London. His writings can be found in the co-authored book Misguided Tactics for Propriety Calibration, published with the Graham Foundation, as well as essays in MONU magazine, the AIA Journal Manifest, Log, bracket, and the guest-edited issue of MAS Context on the topic of character architecture.
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University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture: arch.uic.edu/
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Music provided by Epidemic Sound
#architecture #urbandesign
While I’m a fan of modern architecture and brutalist architecture, I appreciate you poking fun at them. A quote that always stuck with me about all of it was from a documentary about Mies Van Der Rohe:
“Mies never lived in any of the buildings he designed.”
One of my favorite gripes is having to clean an appliance that it is obvious that the person that designed it never had to clean one of.
There is a joke in my house that all anyone has to do to send me into an uncontrollable rage is to mention Mies Van Der Rohe‘s name in my presence. That little s**t‘s abominations have followed me throughout my whole life from Chicago to Washington, DC to Berlin. Each of these cities is “famous” for hosting multiple prominent Van Der Rohe buildings that are incapable of fulfilling even the most basic functions for which they were ostensibly designed.
I always wonder a bit - why do we still call brutalist buildings "modern architecture"?
@Psychollek “Modern” is referring to the ~1930s-~1980s Modernist philosophy/design movement as opposed to the current era - it’s why 1950’s and 1960’s era furniture is called “Mid-Century Modern” when it’s literally from last century.
then this is different to common usage in Poland where what you describe is indeed called "modernistyczny", but nevertheless all of them would be commonly still called "architektura nowoczesna" or "współczesna" which would translate for contemporary@@evermote8389
Stu, I’m really enjoying how your personality is coming through in these recent videos. Less of a lecture and more of rant. Keep it up.
Thanks! Appreciate the feedback. It feels more natural for me for sure.
Generally I'm more of a fan of the lecture like videos. Those are very chill to just casually watch and perhaps listen to while doing something else. I feel like the nuances of the topic at hand can also kindof get lost in this format.
Though everyone has their own preferences of course.
@@Thim22Z7i think a little bit of everything is the best recipe, this video in particular makes it feel like you are part of the "inside" jokes of a class of his, and that is definitely where the jokes have come from. But yeah, i am a big fan of the lecture videos as well. So a bit of everything is the way i feel like.
@@stewarthicks I liked the previous videos. They had a more "no nonsense facts" type feeling
@@stewarthicks I attended UIC for 7 years in the 80’s, you have earned standing in this topic.
The entire town of Cumbernauld in Scotland is a brutalist dream / nightmare. Designed to provide an idyllic suburban escape from the city of Glasgow, it has not aged well at all. The shopping centre feels derelict, the 'penthouse' apartments have been unoccupied for years and the whole area has the feel of a bathroom suite that hasnt been updated since the 60's. A case study on the entire town would be amazing. I would have loved to see what it was like back in its heyday.
I searched for images of that town. Wow... It really feels desolate. It's like the polar opposite of cozy.
Everywhere falls apart without maintainance. The double edged sword of Brutalism is that it lingers on its death bed for so much longer before it has to be torn down for safety reasons or collapses on its own.
Brutalist architecture also benefits from nice warm weather and verdant green growth in my view, which makes the North an unfortunate place for it
In Eastern Europe, the whole countries are a brutalist dream
As a person living in such for a long, I can say brutalist buildings are somewhat convenient (unlike many recently built, surprisingly) and have a specific beauty behind them, but You get SO BORED of it soon. In the winter, it even feels really, really depressing
@@TheShortStory
"Everything falls apart without maintenance"
The pyramids didn't.
This is the ultimate folly of brutalism. It wants to be, or at least appear, raw, monumental, and timeless... but the execution and choice of materials make this impossible. Turns out, you can't fake timelessness. Concrete, especially the mass produced, low quality concrete used to pour these monstrosities into shape, clearly isn't able to stand the test of time.
You say it's better in a sunny, southern climate... but concrete's terrible insulation makes it umbearable in the hot summer, and saltwater absolutely destroys concrete, so there you go.
And on top of all that, its only, singular beautifying element is the simple, uniform geometry of the structure - which practically immediately gets stained by smog and grime, and becomes a dark, dirty, bumpy, lumpy, coarse something. The microtextures completely hide any macrostructural beauty present.
Seriously. Take a Farrari. Arguably a car embodying geometric beauty. Cover it with wet sand and mortar in a thin layer. Now smear black sut unevenly across it. Still looks pretty? That's what I thought.
Architects don't understand that the micro scale cannot be avoided. There is a reason giant red or yellow brick multi storey houses are still aesthetic and desirable despite the dirt, grime and wear on them. It's because their brick microtexture effectively hides imperfections.
Raw Concreate just does not work in a cold wet climate, it gets dark and without strong sunlight it is at best grey. The burdon of maintainence is just too much; moss, alge, constantly wet and often with flat roofs, water pools and gets into the fabric, so you add dark stripes and rust streaks to the patches of green - just hideous. Traditional building takes the climate into account; pitched roofs, rendered wall surfaces, often coloured, building details picked out, often in raw stone. Even large slab-like old buildings are atractive and last longer
Ok this was a great and hilarious commentary but I still genuinely love how an almost ironic elegance emerges from the utilitarian functionalism of brutalism. Like minimalism without pretension - or, rather, the pretension in appreciating it is not condescending. The condescension comes from the Big Man in the office overlooking the atrium, not the onlooker appreciating the cold bare-bones beauty. Like, it's pretentious but in a way that we as cogs in the machine can share together. _Our_ pretension.
Well done.
Yup, Stewart has been teaching it for so long that he’s finally achieved “dancing about architecture.”
Utopian Socialist Pretension
You forgot to mention that you are a masochist.
Minimalism is just rich people chic for constant consumerism.
This may be a small point but brutalism to me does usually look better on the inside than the outside with how open the buildings are. On the outside, brutalist buildings need to be paired with a lot of greenery and the buildings themselves should be of a certain size otherwise they lose the monumental value to them. For some reason, around my area we have a bunch of realitors we seem to set up shop in small brutalist buildings surrounded by a parking lot and it just looks sad.
And there's a big problem with greenery. All the "Soviet hellscape" photos are just November-April, no vegetation.
Not even talking that Russian sky is grey 300 days a year and Russian greenery isn't emerald, but muted.
Wth are you talking about? I've never been in a brutalist building that wasn't as dingey, oppressive, and ugly inside as it was outside.
jackcarver: "brutalism to me does usually look better on the inside than the outside " Jack, with respect I feel totally the opposite. I lived for a year in a 28-story brutalist dorm and have more than once felt pride looking a pictures of the place I lived over 40 years ago. But then I remember the inside, how cold it felt, even when it wasn't, how cavernous it was, yet without the beauty of a Carlsbad or Mammoth. I think I was depressed every minute I was in that dorm, except (eventually) in our actual room, which my roommate and I managed to warm up with some color and fabric.
@@BS-vx8dg I personally like the cavernous feeling of those kinds of buildings.
Yeah, that's a major disconnect here for many of the buildings; Architects have the ability to control their composition and give the offset the huge gray expanses with healthy planter installations, landscaping and furnishings. But as soon as the initial construction is done nobody puts in the effort and you end up with withered lawns, dead trees, and empty planters.
Even if the building was meant to use greenery or colored furnishings to offset the monolithic edifices of the walls, the tenets don't give a crap and sabotage the aesthetics they paid out the nose for a few years earlier. It's the failing of many building, but brutalism in particular has the fault of not having anything but those accents to soften them enough for most people's appreciation, and they come out lookin like graveyards even while in heavy use.
If your goal was to leave me utterly bewildered as to whether or not you like brutalism, fantastic work
(10/10 great video, as usual)
He speaks like an aesthete, luxuriating in its qualities even while demeaning it. It’s a form of gaslighting.
He said he likes working in the largest collection of brutalist buildings in Chicago.
That part is a lie: he hates that those buildings are impossible to heat. Architects are like cats: they like it hot.
One of the very small number of Brutalist buildings in my city is part of a hospital but seperate to the main building and literally fenced off, has been empty for 10+ years, was used as a psychiatric ward, and is about 8 stories tall.
I love the building, but wowsers it looks exactly like you'd imagine a tall abandoned psychiatric hospital that's haunted looks like.
It’s true that some materials are meant to age gracefully, but many of these buildings are neglected to the point of ruin. I think they deserve better care and preservation. A worn-out wallet may have some charm, but not if it can’t hold your money.
I agree. While the brick that is sometimes used ages well, the concrete that predominates is generally neglected and soon looks post-apocalyptic.
UIC was that way. The buildings were disintegrating throughout the 1980s.
This is the question of quality. Even so, brutalist architecture is much more enduring by design.
It is a thick leather wallet with rough stitches that aren't trying to hide - it will be sturdier even if made by less qualified hands
Makes me wounder- Roman concrete is a bit weaker overall but it’s better against wear and tear. Could you make brutalist structures out of the recipe and would they decay less?
Yeah, the main reason some people find brutalist architecture depressing is because brutalist buildings are often not properly taken care of
'Concrete ages gracefully'. This was hilarious. On a serious note, I know that many architects genuinely thought so. I was taught at university that a good historian is someone who can enter the minds of the people of the past. If I didn't have my exam results to prove otherwise, I could be led to believe that I must be a very bad historian. I simply and utterly cannot comprehend what went through the minds of these people. I feel like I'm from a different planet.
It's funny, because it's true. The only materials that age better than concrete are certain types of stone, ceramics with enamel, copper and glass. Steel and painted wood? The paint will fall off within 20 years - they essentially need constant refurbishment to look good. Aluminium? Forget it. Sandstone and uncoated ceramics like bricks are similar to concrete. Natural wood? It will get dark grey within 15 years, even with protective oiling. Plaster - not even close. Styrofoam with acrylic plaster - it's a joke, it can look worse than a 50 yo concrete within 10 years.
Of course the concrete needs to be high quality to even look good in the first place - but with right mixture and proper casting - it can look almost as good as stone.
You may have the impression that concrete looks bad because most of plaster building get cleaned and refurbished several times before anyone even consider taking care of concrete ones. Also if concrete has defects it can uncover the steel reinforcement which looks really bad - but that doesn't happen if the building is maintained properly.
Some people just have bad taste, and it so happens that many of them are architects
@@EustaH Concrete gets horrific staining and streaking that personally I can't stand. Personally I don't see it as ageing well.
Concrete *can* age well in the right environment and with the right care. It's too often the victim of laziness and neglect though. Even our bridges are suffering from it. It's too easy to take for granted.
@@EustaHits not about the use of concrete, what makes these buildings ugly is the design. they couldve been built with marble and they still look hideous
I've grown up around several brutality structures and I've always felt that as long as you pair them with the right environment (not too imposing, surrounded by nature) they pop in ways that just make you go "wow"
Definitely they can be made quite nice with some green walls and more area's enclosed in glass.
In other words, they just need more color
Except that (according to many proponents) colour and decoration are _against_ the idea of brutalism - the building should be gray, imposing, raw concrete, and you should like it that way. Ick.
And don’t put them next to actually beautiful buildings because their ugliness just becomes that much more apparent. There’s one in my small downtown. Mostly the streets are lined with those buildings typical of old American colonial style, but the brutalist building sticks out like an ugly sore thumb. Consideration of a building’s placement and harmony in its environment is everything.
The other secret is that the design be around a human scale. Many so-called “Brutalist” buildings just used the style because it could be cheap and avoided ornamentation. The really great Brutalist buildings have a wonderful sense of space and function.
All “styles” of architecture can be good or bad. I think that we can all identify excellent and inspiring examples in all the eras of architectural design, as well as dismal failures.
When I graduated from architecture school in 1972, I was a firm believer in modernism. Over the years, I was pushed into designing to meet my clients’ whims, but I learned that I could embrace materials and philosophies to meet the extraordinary diversity of needs in the world. The question is how well we identify the project needs and meet them with both consistency and honesty. In the right hands “brutal” buildings, “post modern” buildings and “classical” buildings can reflect their eras and be masterpieces.
Excellent Comment. I completed my M. Arch. in 1969 and found professional practice to be exactly what you have stated.
Thanks. Another advantage I’ve noticed for your list: When cleaned and renovated, brutalist buildings look even more lumbering & pitiless.
Both Brutalism and Art Deco have the capacity to instantly transport me to another time and place (probably a place that would cause me depression in the long term). But you cannot deny how much personality these movements have.
I'd rather go to the Art Deco place than the Brutalism place.
@@Snarkbar You know how unchecked greed of the modern day has led to rampant poverty and no incentives to fix the systemic issues behind it? Well it was even worse back in the Art Deco days.
Not to mention the minstrel shows. So many minstrel shows... 🤢
@@Snarkbar funny because art deco was seen as just as bad when it began as a movement. lol.
@@Snarkbar I would also choose going to Metropolis over going to the Soviet Union.
It would be cool to have a whole city of brutalist buildings that you can visit, like a dystopian Disneyland. But it would not be great for the mental state of the people who have to work and live there
Boston resident here - most people enjoy City Hall itself as an iconic and visually striking piece of architecture, but the empty brick plaza it sits on was always pretty depressing. Thankfully this was rectified recently with the addition of a playground and more greenery, plus multi function spaces for events.
As someone who works in boston and takes a bus past the magnificent Boston Government Service Center every day, the visual interest of these structures really cant be ignored. The almost fractal nature of a lot of brutalist architecture gives the eyes so much to wander over and so many textures to get lost in. Its more similar to the depth one finds in nature than in other architecture.
I also went to school at Umass Amherst, where two enormous brutalist buildings-the campus center and the fine arts center-were by far my favorite parts of campus. Umass being situated on the steep face of a valley meant that a building this large couldnt just arise from flat ground like youd expect, but instead had to shape itself into the geometry of the valley. The result was these sprawling buildings with no clear "ground level" and with little distinction of where the building ended and the outside ground started. Most of my commutes to classes took me under, over, or through one of these buildings, and they made me feel really connected to campus life and the campus itself. Walking through the bustling food court in the campus center at noon, I knew that just above me were people sitting on the 'roof' enjoying the sun. Walking under the bridge of the fine arts center at 8pm on a cold winter night when nobody else was outside, i knew that suspended in the air 50 feet above me were a dozen students in the last art class of the day keeping me company.
People claimed to hate these buildings yet they still congregated in their spaces bc theyre just so conducive to having people in them. They may look imposing but the second you interact with them you cant help but be pulled in and welcomed by them.
Great comment.
So you're to blame for stuff like this. Instead of calling a spade a spade, you do mental gymnastics to find a way to enjoy a building that's obviously badly designed. And no, people don't use the City Hall Plaza. They definitely don't gravitate toward it. Compare its utilization to any traditional plaza or park in Boston or elsewhere, and Boston City Hall plaza is desolate.
Your government is evil, your society is evil, your buildings are evil and you can't help but like it. So enjoy it. 😉
Stockholm Syndrome.
@@reference2592 It's just a difference in preference, not mental gymnastics. I've always loved brutalism and modern styles of architecture. No one ever had to convince me and I've never convinced myself.
In fact, people keep trying to tell me I shouldn't like it. Doesn't change my opinion though. Good brutalism looks timeless and sublime while being absent of human ego and ostentation. What a lot of people call "real architecture" (classical European stuff of the 17th to early 19th century) looks tacky and self-important to me. I don't like it and don't understand why people consider it beautiful. I appreciate the workmanship, but it's bad art to me.
Brutalism strikes me as sort of a minimalist Art Deco: bold forms but without the decoratifs. I do think it should be paired with green space/trees, both to balance the aesthetic, and to further highlight the difference between organic and the artificial utilitarian.
It is ironic that people talk about how Brutalism is favoured by dictators; that is probably true only in Asia. In contrast, most dictators of the 20th century were conservative in tastes - Franco, Hitler, Stalin, Ceausescu would not have approved of them.
On the other hand, former Asian colonies were deeply in favour of post-modern and brutalist design.
@@meilinchan7314 Yeah this is the part that gets me. If you go to Moscow most of the buildings that were constructed during the Stalin era were not Brutalist.
So how did this architecture get associated with that. I can only think that Pop-Culture was the Culprit.
Well, English 'brutal' and French 'brut' aren't COMPLETELY unrelated. They do technically trace back to the same root word, but yes, there are shades of nuance to point out.
Moss and mold:
Concrete patina.
Part of the problem with a lot of brutalist buildings is that they never got finished. I think that one of the images that was used was Birmingham Central Library in England. It was never completed. There were so many plans, but instead, it ended up with walkways leading nowhere, a bus station that never saw a bus, and a Conservatoire that looked like you would serve time rather than beat out the time. Yet, for all its faults, I loved it both inside and out. Rather than complete the original plan, the council tinkered around the edges, filling in the open atrium with tatty shops and even a Hooters. Unsurprisingly, it became less and less popular, suffered vandalism, and was eventually demolished, to be replaced by bland glass boxes. There are few examples of brutalist architecture left in the city, and recently, the last major example has been scheduled for demolition.
Classical ruins look better than uncompleted Brutalism never mind Brutalist ones.
I'll take ugly glass boxes over brutalism. They have faces only a mother could love.
I think that's partly to do with he fact that the time of Brutalism was a time of massive economic and social decline in the UK. That meant the rise of slums in newly constructed utopian architectural "solutions" to these new realities. Having selected the style of architecture in part because of the not always realized promises of low cost and maintenance, operating funding, and financing of completion phases were dead on arrival. Some of the films that Stewart cites (amusingly) are reactions to this emerging actual dystopia: J.G. Ballard being the shining example, that formed a distinct subgenre that took over from the Kitchen Sink dramas that preceded them....Kitchen Sink + Concrete = modern architectural dystopia on film.
@@runningfromabear8354 The benefit of plain glass boxes is that they reflect good buildings that (hopefully) surround them. In my city of Edinburgh one of the recent buildings has been nicknamed "the golden turd" because it looks like a giant poop emoji. I'm not saying it would look good if it was just a glass box, but at least it wouldn't look as bad. Now the building will likely blight the skyline of the city for decades. At least it won't last as long as the genuinely good looking buildings in the city.
I'd love to know what Stewart thinks of it.
GOOD!!!
I went to London early last year to see the works at Tate Modern and to see The Barbican in person. What a wonderful complex that thing is. The walkways that are broken up by massive open areas, water features and parks are unlike anything I've ever seen before. I never expected it to be as vertical as it was either. The pictures I've seen are are great, but it's something else in person. I've always been a big fan of brutalist architecture and nothing I could say could convey the love I feel for these buildings, but every time I see a great work like that in person I feel like I rediscover my love for them all over again.
Sincerely, a lover of raw concrete and the monumental.
This was great; proof positive that architects have a way better sense of humor than engineers! Thank you for your brutal honesty.
none monsieur...he has a Beton Brute sense of honesty
I see what you did, there.
I think Brutalism might have a better reputation if American architects had taken the "utopian socialist ideology" bit a little more seriously, rather than mainly pursuing the cool chunky aesthetic. As it is, the style ends up associated with The Gubmint and other powerful institutions in the US, _and_ with declining public housing projects in the UK. So it becomes the perfect visual shorthand for "little people under oppressive uncaring authority". Which is really unfortunate for a style that was originally meant to embody a very open, humane sort of social arrangement.
Yeah idk what it is, but seeing these buildings always gives me a sort of warm nostalgia of public elementary school. Things like libraries, field trips to the museum or important buildings like the city hall.
It works for a skatepark aesthetic where spray painting is welcomed. That’s a public utopian space. Any outdoor gym, actually, would work with this chunky aesthetic.
Vomit has a "cool" chunky aesthetic too!
To me it says "evil dystopian tyrannical government"
@@aimeem and that differs fun utopian socialist how?
One of my favorite examples of brutalist architecture in media is in the game “control.” I don’t think it necessarily portrays it in a bad way either. I think mysterious is more fitting. Either way, the brutalist office building you explore in that game looks beautiful
I am always going to be that guy that defends mid-century buildings (my favorite is Seagram/NYC) from people who hate them. I do though like "brutalist" structures on a building to building basis. Some are bad, some are good. I know my next trip into NYC, I have to seek out some that I have never been to. Love your videos and share them everytime. Best to you!
I have learned to -somewhat- love brutalist buildings. I just don't want to see a whole city crowded with them. Just like i don't like a whole city full of glass skyscrapers
Brutalist buildings have all the charm of a stalinist labor camp.
@@iLumberjack never been to one. But i feel like i would enjoy it now (yes i say that with sarcasm as ofc i wouldn't enjoy it)
The Washington D.C. has some great underground brutalist metro stations. You are right though, it is the type of architecture that is best done in moderation.
Listen, there’s people out there who can’t get an erection without someone defecating on them. There’s lots of things people enjoy that they should rightly be embarrassed about.
For the older stations it mostly works as the stations have large vertical interiors. And since one is already in a hole in the ground, it makes sense. Definitely better with the new lighting, though.
Living in New Haven, CT during and after the fire at the Paul Rudolf designed Art and Architecture building...the University decided to save it - with modifications (to the inside). I saw a contractor using specialized tools to create a doorway in a lower level supporting wall. That wall was so thick It looked like a concrete bridge support. Also in New Haven is the Temple Street Garage. It's all formed concrete; and one of my favorites. I was a student in Syracuse during the building of the Everson Museum. The contractor chisel-hammered one facade in the wrong direction, and had to do that work again.
"When choosing films though try to stick to those that shine a positive light on the style"
There is one or two episodes of Stargate SG1 that got a Canadian brutalist building (perhaps a university) if I recall. It was portraited in a quite positive light because it was a building of the Tolan civilization (That got later wiped out by the Goa'uld). The Tolans were quite non violent, technologically advanced and corruption free. So the quite opposite of a totalitarian heck hole.
Ah, that was SFU, in Vancouver. It's played a lot of millitary headquarters, evil corporation buildings, and the like too. Though I think it looks good.
The new Dune did too good of a job, you could probably skip the rest of the list.
Growing up in Chicago and having lived in London (by the Barbican0 for the past 27 years I can say London's love for Bruitalist architecture have increased a ton over the past 15 to 20 years
I've just moved to london and live near the barbican, and i just love going there to walk around, during sunset its stunning!
LOL…Imagine my surprise 20 years ago when 10 year old son plugged in his new Tony Hawk Pro-Skater video game and we were “skateboarding” around Denys Ladsun’s National Theatre.
Different strokes for different folks. Fast forward 10 years and he serendipitously “invented” the term “Magical Brutalism” while writing his undergrad history thesis in the Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Morena by Clorindo Testa.
His sister, on the other hand, is more of a Hogwarts fan.
The brutalism in Latin America tends to have more of a devil-may-care flair to it. Many American examples…such as DC’s FBI building convey a more sinister vibe…and perhaps that’s the intent.
i really love visually complex architecture like art nouveau but you convinced me to do some reseach and i did found some really good brutalist buldings like:
1. John's Abbey church
2. edificio morro vermelho
3. American Cement Building
4. Academy of Arts in Tashkent
5. national museum kyrgyzstan
6. State Museum of History uzbekistan
7. chisinau state circus
8. Russian State Scientific Center for Robotics and Technical Cybernetics
9. Mural Banco de Guatemala
10. Centre Point London
11. Bishkek Circus
12. Bishkek Wedding Palace
13. CBR Office Building (new brutalist)
14. IBM Building Honolulu (sort of brutalist)
I only like the one from Tashkent and uzbekistan, because they just don't fell like brutalist architecture. There is so much work in ornementation that it doesn't look like concrete. But do they still like this good from closer ?
I asked for more snark... and you delivered!
You hit all the points for my ideal CZcams video:
Wit.
Malort.
Movie references.
Epic mustache.
A Chicago connection.
A brilliant conceit executed well.
Moooooorrre!!
Hey! I resemble that critique! Joking aside, I grew up in southern Mexico City in the 70s, among a *lot* of new brutalist buildings, mostly by Barragán. To me it represents clean geometry, openness to the outside, a space where you always know and understand where you are and your relationship to everything else. They're familiar and comforting.
Oh my god, this commentary is a work of art (love that Jon Stark deep cut). That said, I unironically appreciate brutalism in the same way I appreciate neoclassical. I don't wish it gone, I simply wish it to age gracefully, if such a thing is possible.
Architecture schools seem to produce people who fetishize styles (I was thinking of I.M. Pei too). Having just built a house here in Japan, I see the same stubborn adherence to stylistic references in my own architect.
I.M. Pei's - Dallas Civic Center was in the movie Robocop... also another one not to use as an example. lol
I believe one of the biggest issues with 'Brutalist' buildings is that the majority of their examples were built during the 60-70s, during that time of "urban renewal". Of course nowadays we've learned that it is not a great idea to raze entire neighborhoods to build some monolithic government plaza or apartment blocks. Since the failed idealist vision is now seemingly forever tied with that design style/language.
In case anyone was wondering... Mexico has a deep love for Brutalism, as many of the most iconic buildings in Mexico City are brutalist. Most of the people I know, and many of my fellow architecture student friends agree that it is one of the things that gives Mexico City it's personality. Some of the greatest brutalism architects here were Teodoro Gonzáles de León, Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Agustín Hernández Navarro. Check them out if you're interested!
The Anthropology Museum alone would establish Ramirez Vazquez.
Yup! and it's not just Mexico, all of Latin America has a huge number of good brutalist buildings, Brazil and Argentina also have several iconic buildings like this.
I think the big difference is in the search and making this brutalism closer to local realities, the care with reinterpretations of historical references and bioclimatic adjustments, giving an extra touch of quality to these buildings.
The subway station in the movie Total Recall was set in Mexico City and it’s a brutalist style.
I love Brutalism. I am not an architect. I once heard someone describe the style as emotionally evocative. They are that. The emotions just aren't always positive. For those that like them, they have an intensity and purity that is incredibly moving.
To me they're a great representation of oppression. They say "The experts and those in charge know what is good and you, the little people, don't need to have a say in art, architecture, civics, urban planning, ect . . ."
Well put
at the outset of the PostModern architectural movement, the Atlantic (iirc) published an article about the phenomenon titled "Private Jokes in Public Places", which set off a needed debate about the imposition of architectural idiosyncrasy and irresponsibilty as a caustic against the integrity of civic space. I think the title of such an article about Brutalism could be, "Private Tantrums in Public Spaces". The irritating cute levity of Postmodernism has aged badly; but at least the tantrums connected to something akin to architectural existentialism, with questions that our less serious age has proved bad at answering, or even engaging with.
@@Strideo1to continue your sentence: "... and that is why I don't use vaccines"
i once heard someone say that cities are for people to live their lives in, not for making people feel uncomfortable. If the purpose of such unavoidable public art is to invoke emotions that aren't always comfortable, then they only exist for those privileged enough to see uncomfortable emotions as a welcome novelty. For a great many residents of cities discomfort is a fact of life, they don't need architecture to re-enforce that for them
I don't generally like brutalism, but I have seen one situation where it works really well. A brutalist library on the top of a hill, where it catches the light, does look really quite good when the sun is shining on it, and especially in the golden hour when you get the interplay of shadows. But the second important thing that makes it work in this context is that the building next to it, which is a little shorter and was built a few decades later, copies a lot of its blocky shapes and the rhythm of the windows, but using bits of dark wooden cladding and increased shades over the windows. The combination of the two buildings softens the harshness of the concrete and enables you to see beauty in the rhythm of the repeated patterns of the concrete construction, whilst also highlighting the brightness of the concrete in a positive manner.
When I hear all the circumstances it takes for a brutalist building to work really well, I have to ask myself, why is that a selling point? Is it the best thing that could have been built there? Unlikely.
Everytime I see a flat roof I think of your video on your architects actually intend for water to enter buildings
Yes, they are called "roof drains".
I'd rather have gargoyles than holes in the roof.
Well, I'm from Montréal which is brutalist heaven and also speaks French, so perhaps it's normal for us to like the stuff? Oh, there are some poor examples of course -- Place Bonaventure, anyone? -- but the métro station below it and indeed many other stations are truly beautiful, and hello? Habitat 67?
Verdun and LaSalle stations are truly impressive. I feel like brutalism works better for interior spaces.
@@binoutech Place Bonaventure is actually a great example--you can't see any of it from the ground but the hotel on top is kind of lovely inside, in a faded-60s-swank way, with the gardens and duck ponds on the top. You can imagine Connery's Bond meeting somebody there.
I am a powerful person and I love brutalist architecture
You are powerful so I am compelled to agree with you.
That’s why FBI headquarters in DC is a Brutalist building.
I am even more powerful and I love brutalist architecture even more
At this rate, the whole world is going to be covered in concrete.
Why does this video look familiar? Oh yeah, I watched it on Nebula.
The thing I love about brutalist buildings is those amazing massive shapes seemingly floating in space. How do they do that???
Concrete does NOT "age gracefully" - it gets grubby and ingrained with stains and dirt, far more than natural stone. Particularly in cold wet environments, old concrete buildings just look shabby and tired.
I love the irony of just because he can't enjoy geometry everyone else must be faking it, my love for brutalism comes from the hospital my dad works at, from a very young age I associate brutalism with warmth, healing and coziness, and later on in life by scifi and progress, the future
Warmth, healing, and coziness, huh? Most brutalist architecture comes across to me as frigid, traumatic, and discomforting.
Wonderful tongue-in-cheek style to the script! Regardless, I still like brutalism; as you alluded, fewer beans to count. For public budgets, it's no wonder the style was so often employed, given the LPTA standards of the era. Still, I believe the life-cycle costs have forced planners and designers to move on from the style - whether it's the ridiculous HVAC inefficiency, or the ludicrous maintenance of cracking and spalling, these behemoths were not necessarily the cost-benefit marvels that were envisioned or promised. Instead, all our new buildings can be indistinguishable from each other, with modular design representing the acme efficiency now, just in case our local library needs to sell-out to CosMc's someday.
Failing the cost-benefit envisioned or promised. Just like the authoritarian ideology driving the designs
Trailer parks showed up in the same era of brutalism too. They've aged like fine wine.
I haven't seen that city hall building before, but from the few scenes here, I think it looks kinda cool?
"A life where everyone knows their role in the collective." LOL Not doing a good job of convincing that this isn't neo-Soviet monoliths.
As someone who grew up surrounded by brutalist buildings in Brasília, there's a certain sense of nostalgia for me whenever I see one
Hilarious video, well done! I feel Brutalism does gain more appreciation over the last years. From a purely aesthetic viewpoint, I just love how those bare grey masses emphasise the geometric patterns without distraction and encourage the light to play with them, as well as when its paired with a lot of greenery, which I think is when those utopian ideologies best come out. But of course if you leave away the greenery, it can easily be synonymous with dystopia, too. ;-) Maybe that's because it's such a bare canvas. If you need media that literally shine a light on the beauty of Brutalism, though, then Villeneuve's "Dune" and the videogame "Control" immediately spring to mind. It's not like they don't also kind of present these buildings as imposing and maybe even menacing. But the way they have the light caress this raw architecture just makes you fall in love with it.
Love how this is satirical, while quite literally managing to show everyone how basic advertising & propaganda language works.
Numbered questions!
1. Other styles, like art deco, seem to be be able to use a variety of materials. I realise the whole thing started with concrete but couldn't you do brutalism in wood or brick or a facade?
2. Why don't they dye the concrete? I don't think it would necessarily break the tenants but it would look less depressing in the middle of winter if the building was teal against snow instead of greyish white. Or add colored lights.
4. Why don't people propose brutalism buildings made out of roman concrete? It's self healing properties would solve one of the major criticisms.
................
I don't know if brutalism can be saved from the mistakes initially made with it or the bad reputation from real life and fictional villains embracing it but brutalism coffee tables are stupidly over priced.
Have the same thoughts. Would love rammed earth or mass timber brutalist inspired buildings. If not painted colorblocked buildings like a Mondrian painting. People love Barragan's work but are quick to come for raw concrete, a simple paint job could change everything.
I'm not an uber expert, but my initial thoughts. Brutalism sticks with a limited palette of materials for ease of construction, detailing, and maintenance which all boil down to a more pure expression and hopefully less cost. Some examples do employ other materials like wood, but it tends to be limited. The dye idea is interesting, but seems like their answer would be that it goes against the tenets of an honest material expression. They'd prefer to leave it alone and allow the actual material's raw state provide all of the aesthetic qualities in combination with the form. Roman concrete was not reinforced, which limits its modern application, but it seems like experiments with ingredient formulations happen all the time and could yield great potential.
Re 2 - Unfortunately I can't find a source for it right now, but I've heard that a lot of brutalist buildings were actually intended to be painted in bright colors, but this never happened because it was too expensive.
Re 4 - roman concrete wasn't really understood until very recently, so it wouldn't have been an option for most architects at the time brutalism was in style.
@@wintermute5974 first, thanks for the reply. Secound, to clarify I meant new brutalist buildings.
I hate not remembering where I read a thing so I feel for you. If I ever come across a source I will try to reply back.
The vast windswept plaza around Boston City Hall was designed to be a market plaza which would have rows of shop stalls produce sellers etc, but the city never bothered to actually fund a market there so it's just left empty except for larger festivals and when the Big Apple Circus comes
Wonderful commentary on this style of architecture, and the interactions between language interpretation, individuals, community, buildings, materials, and society. Love your channel (and brutalist buildings, too)!
There are nice Brutalist buildings, but Boston City Hall feels like it was made to drive away people. That whole plaza is eerily empty when the bustling North End is within view.
That's just the burden of the role the building has in society. The emptiness is supposed to offer an open invitation for communal gathering!
/s
The price for building City Hall in Boston, and Government Center with it, is that Scollay Square had to be razed. Thus, the Howard Athenaeum (affectionately known as The Old Howard), was lost. It was Boston's best-known burlesque theater.
New England Puritanism lives on. Once upon a time, they landed on Plymouth Rock. Now they live and work inside it.
You missed an architect who did some beautiful work in Brutalism: John Portman. His Atlanta Marriot Marquis is a masterpiece.
As an Atlantan who respects the Heavy-weight Architect, John Portman, I (& most) hate his projects at Street-Level & how they say "FFF-All' to their place in the City. Most of what should be prime & vibrant street-level real estate, is usually a cavernous Motor Lobby, Loading Dock, or half-axxed, dead storefront.
Portman's stuff is striking from a few miles away (usually because of their heights), but up close, they fail.
HOWEVER, inside, is a diff story - These do accomplish what this video points out a bout Brutalism - the Interior, Public spaces are vast & quite alive. They are akin to a Bond Villian's Rocket-Launching Buffet. Blofeld would love the Marriott Marquis for just such a place, & he would likely have a sax player in the Moby Dick Ribbed Atrium to accompany the clarion call of "9 Minutes...& counting...."
Indeed, I'm really surprised that we never got a Bond Movie having 007 grab onto a tapestry at the 50th story & slide all the way down it.
I just LOVE your videos! I always learn so much, and you teach in an entertaining way. Thank you!!
I'm from a city where the bulk of the core used to be brutalist. It's changed a lot in the last 15 years, but sometimes I can't help but to think of it as a frigid Soviet hellscape. Regardless, when I was really young, I found the buildings awe-inspiring. Then I went through an angsty teenage phase that lasted longer than it should of where everything sucked. Eventually, one of my universities was an Arthur Erickson design, and I very quickly developed a fondness for the style. I wonder sometimes if it's the symmetry or the internal colourways that draw me to it. Either way, I'm currently living in a city that has a truly terrible brutalist library at it's biggest university, and any time I walk by it I'm shocked that no one told them they did it wrong.
Do you mean Robarts?
I live in Toronto, too! Robarts is ghastly.
I'm kind of surprised you didn't bring up Robocop, the Dallas Civic center was transplanted to Detroit with a bunch of fake skyscraper floors on top of it to serve as the OCP headquarters.
I love your channel, it's always a good day when you release an episode. #5 Name Dropping, I live in an I.M.Pei building in NYC and I love it, we have a huge garden in the centre and there is a real sense of community in our building, in the summer families sit in the garden and have dinner, we have ping-pong tables and even a basketball court. I grew up in the 80's and didn't like brutalist buildings, such as the Manulife Building and the John P. Robarts Research Library in Toronto, my views have evolved and now I appreciate their beauty and grandeur. Once again, thank you for a great episode.
Man, you have outdone yourself with this video! I'm a long time viewer and I've always liked your style. This is different but even better!!! Please keep it up!
Brutalism is both aggressive and imposing and yet somehow also bland and boring. It's like a an overwhelming expression of the absence of life. There's nothing graceful about it and it really just feels like a big middle finger to anyone looking at it.
Couldn't agree more. Brutalist buildings are like a monuments of futility. They make me think about dust and death.
I watched the whole video without knowing if you were really criticizing or not 😂, but I like this video format, you should look up brazilian brutalism, it hits different. Amazing video!
I really need this guy to record an audio book, I fall asleep listening to his videos so the time, I'm not saying he's boring, I love his videos, just the way he talks is calming
The best part about brutalist buildings is how they "spontaneously grow" their own (ever changing) protective coat of paint in the form of graffiti. Bad tongues might claim that the protectiveness of that paint layer is something the architects neglected to provide. But it's undeniable that the architects hold the position in the building's creation process which is the most responsible for imagining how the building would interact with its environment. So I say we would really be insulting the vision of the Architects if we asserted that all that talk that they present about how they imagine the building's interaction with the environment is just to bullshit whoever pays for their service (which I'm deeefinitely not doing here by intentionally using the same style of language). We owe it to the architects to assume that they predicted, appreciated and desired this very interaction.
I LOVE the sly way you framed this. Growing up in Southern Alberta in the 70s and 80s I remember some great Brutalist examples like Arthur Erickson’s University of Lethbridge or the Calgary Board of Education (itself looking like a downscaled Boston City Hall)
Some of the most human, liveable buildings I know were built in this style.
Seeing the behavioral science building at UIC will always give me a deep rooted fear of brutalism. Not because it isn’t a beautiful building, but because it’s the most confusing, nonsensical, and unsettling architecture I have EVER seen. Being so close to other elegant and functional buildings in the same style is just a slap in the face. 😂
I agree! It was horrible! (Those of us in engineering also loved to call it the “Bull Sh!t Building” both due to its confusing construction and the topic of study there)
Behavioral Science building? Perfect irony.
It's clear you're having fun eith this new style of videos. Im learning while you're poking fun. Nicely done!
Love the video Stuart, especially poking fun at the airs of self-importance that can overrun architectural criticism and study. I also love brutalism, and after years of working near Boston city hall and entering it a few times to vote and such, I really enjoy it. I think the recent plaza renovations really helped frame it nicely and humanize the setting providing some balance. Variety is important to me, in food, art and architecture, and the playfully “imposing” structures provide me a nice theatrical SciFi atmosphere. Not every TV show needs to be as relentlessly positive as Ted Lasso, but I also that. Now give me something a little rough.
I lived and worked in Boston for decades. City Hall and the whole Government Center complex should be replaced. It is completely out of place and out of scale with the buildings that surround it: the Third City Hall (1865), Faneuil Hall (1742) , the Old State House (1713), and The Green Dragon Tavern (1654). Since the complex was built, most of the remaining surrounding buildings were also demolished and replaced with additional modernist buildings that are also out of place and out of scale - not to mention falling apart. Writing scathing op-eds about the cost of washing the windows of City Hall is an annual rite of passage for journalists and critics.
Certainly I understand that rebuilding quickly and cheaply after catastrophic war damage would result in misplaced architecture, but this was a self-inflicted wound.
The whole Government Center complex comes from the same timeframe and mindset of redevelopment as the Central Artery project, which also bulldozed neighborhoods to build an elevated highway that was obsolete before it was completed, but at least now has been buried underground and replaced with open spaces. The city of Boston would be well served by burying the Government Center complex and replacing it with parks and trees.
And the designers of Government Center obviously never considered the climate and the implications of local weather patterns. Brick pavement and snow removal do not go hand in hand. Acres and acres of sunbaked bricks without any shade are not helpful for public gatherings. For half of each year, the icy bricks and the wind whipping through the complex in winter and the baking heat and humidity in the summer make City Hall Plaza a place to avoid whenever possible rather than a welcoming civic center.
Now I feel stupid, because I DO like brutalism. Before this video I didn't really know why, except that I like the tactile aspect of concrete. Now after this video, (some of) the points you mocked sounded as if they really explained how I felt about the style. Obviously I don't like just brutalism, or all of brutalism (like with any style there are duds), but I do enjoy a nice piece of brutalist architecture.
I also love it, which is why I poke fun at it. I'm with you, you don't really need rational reasons beyond liking it...
Your best video so far, by far & am only halfway through 🤣👏 amazing work, so entertaining and informative!
Montreal is a city that got its dose of Brutalism , coincidental with the Centennial of the country; so an odd combination of a dour, heavy and unrefined style with an effusive, optimistic celebration. Montreal in particular was affected because it hosted a huge World's Fair in Expo 67, spurring a huge wave of architectural destruction and construction. The most notable, most enduring, and in my view the most validating Brutalist project was the Montreal Metro, or subway. Montreal had a highly developed transit system but still one completely insufficient for the expected waves of tourists; and it's a winter city, and its transit would grind to a halt in snowstorms.
Which justified the creation of an underground transit system (and a massive underground pedestrian city as well). Montreal is an old city by North American standards, and usually that makes building subways prohibitive; but the special circumstances of the fair, the centennial, and the city's anxieties about losing first place in Canadian urbanism to Toronto (which already had a subway) caused the city to go ahead anyway.
I mention all this, because it means that the entire subway original subway system was built during the period when Brutalism was ascendant, and the effect is found in many of the stations. Montreal's policy was that there was no standard design for stations, as there is in Berlin or individual London Tube lines, or the Paris Metro. Each was designed by a different architect, and inevitably that brought out the Brutalist in many. So Montreal's subway system is a kind of collection of Brutalist variants on a theme. Not many public projects exist at the scale of the Metro in Montreal that were so much the product of the Brutalist design vogue; but they're mostly underground, so they don't photograph so easily as Boston City Hall or the Barbican.
The Bonaventure Hotel is a nexus for rail transport, a prestigious hotel, and a major subway station, and from the subway to the rooftop pool, it's one massive Brutalist orgy of indulgent architectural autoeroticism. Berri de Montigny is another.... but there are many.
I've spent hours in Boston City Hall pouring over maps just to prove my parking permit was valid. And I've spent hours listening to former residents of the neighborhood that City Hall displaced bemoan the loss of homes they once knew. But when the city tried to take away their beloved brick sidewalks the women of Beacon Hill fought back and won. That's when Boston finally stopped paving over its old neighborhoods and began restoring them.
what if i actually like brutalism for all of its quirks and features? Im born in eastern eu so that kind of architecture hits home.
I LOVE y our approach! !!! I have spent far far too much time in Boston City Hall. In the winter (which in Boston is about 364 days out of the year), City Hall is COLD, Echoey, unfriendly, drafty, and depressing. Forget ancient English castles, this place is so drafty that half of Boston City's ordinances had to be rewritten in the 80s because they kept flying away!!!!! That was before digital documents, of course.
Having a private conversation in the atrium is impossible. Harry Potter's author got her idea about the ghosts of Hogwarts from Boston City Hall, I'm quite confident. Standing in the center of the atrium, you can hear whispers of conversations from every corner of the monstrosity (I'm fairly certain some of those whispered conversations have been wafting around in echo chambers for 20-30 years, so if you listen carefully you may even hear an original conversation still drifting about between White Bulger and Mayor White).
Of course the outside is a wind tunnel. Winds whip around the building from the waterfront, or cascade down from the State Street building, creating a lovely web of unexpected turbulence.
Yes, Boston City Hall is a marvelous monstrosity indeed.
I recognize where you are standing at UIC on Harrison St. My favorite part of the plaza is the garden and fountain area. I have explored the paths and enjoyed watching bees and listening to the water many times. I have gotten lost, dizzy and disoriented in the psycology building, however.
Excellent videos and topic. I worked in the Birmingham Central Library in England and it was certainly brutal 😂 but just a shame that the council cut back on the building materials as it was knocked down a few years ago and a new building erected which is interesting to say the least.
I preferred the 1882 version, tbh.
@@kjh23gkI did also. It was beautiful.
Wow, and here I just thought a lot of brutalist buildings looked neat! Now I have talking points
You must be very powerful
OK, that was pretty clever. I've ragged you before, but this was good.
A blatant name-drop: Henry Wood of Boston was a big part of the Boston City Hall design team. I met him a number of times, and visited his amazing house in Narragansett Bay called Clingstone (look it up), which is a 100+ year old holiday house built by a millionaire, that he spent a great deal of his life restoring after buying it in the early 1960's..
He continued to build after BCH, and he lived his life as an architect in Boston, in a fantastic apartment overlooking Boston Common which I also visited: an intricate exercise in maximizing utility of a small space, with folding beds and moving panels that he designed himself. All of this is to say that he never built anything remotely like a brutalist building again, and while I think he was proud of BCH, and lived long enough to see its defenders gain strength and save it from the waves of public calls to blow it up, he didn't express much enthusiasm for having to deal with a work that was so reviled....
2:13 as soon as this shot came up I smiled. Birmingham central library, uk. It was a fascinating place. And I spent five years at the conservatoire music school attached to it next door, also brutalist in design. It had so many interesting books and features you could explore. And a large open central atrium. I miss it. Others hate it and are glad it’s gone. I suppose it’s nostalgia for me, but I was utterly fascinated with it from the moment I first walked under and through it as an 8 year old in 1984.
“On the one hand, you have people with critical thinking skills and eyesight, and on the other you have architects.” Lmao, that got an easy like and comment from me.
Dear Stewart, great video, as usual.
I live in a city that is graced with the only work by Le Corbusier in Latin America (Casa Curuchet). Today the house is a museum and it is rented by the local School of Architecture. I think they were the only ones that wanted it. It seems that the doctor that made it built (and his family) couldn´t cope with the burden of living in it. It´s so hard to live in a theory, more so if it looks and feels like a fridge; brutalist houses can never be acused of being cosy.
Also the "beton brut" is a material that doesn´t ages well: after a few years it darkens and gets full of black areas of humidity. It seems to be a fairly maleable material, if painted or covered with something (anything), I mean hidden by something.
The main problem with brutalism seems to be the very ugly designs, more than the material; that is unsensitive architects: romans didn´t have that problem and some architects can use it very creatively (Lloyd Wright, for instance, I think).
It´s true that it looks strong (and it is, at least when you try to demolish it), but brutalists seem to be very uninsterested on make it look nice, airy, light, or beautiful.
As you point in your video, it seems that only (some) architects like it, mainly very intelectual ones (or those who pretend to be).
The worst thing about brutalist architecture is that it is very hard to demolish and harder to forget.
I always learn a lot with your videos, they are some of best in youtube. Please forgive my hate for this style, in my city and country we have lost lots of beautiful buildings because of the very progresist architecs of the ´60s and ´70s, that hated the past and prefered to destroy and demoslish instead of repair, conserve and reconstruct (which is expensive, admitedly, and takes time and effort).
I´m your admiror.
Brutalism is great fun, actually: implacable, imposing, inhuman, yet hopelessly romantic in its 60's/70's sci-fi leanings and nerdy intellectual underpinnings. Brutalism behind the Iron Curtain left us some especially wild structures. It's a style that's simultaneously unnerving/offputting and super cool.
Your great videos are getting even better with the addition of more humor. Great work!
There's a great lack of humor in brutalist buildings, proven by your humorous video.
What I love about Brutalism is that it needs nearly no maintenance. If you love it new, decades later the experience is the same. I loved it long before I understood architecture. There is bad architecture but there absolutely no BAD styles. They all enrich our world. Less is not more.
"What I love about Brutalism is that it needs nearly no maintenance"
Oooohkay....
I do actually like brutalist architecture. Perhaps it's nostalgia. I'm from Milwaukee. There's so much brutalist architecture there, everywgere you go, and even as a child in the '70s, I found it thrilling visually.
3:06 There it is, "Le Corbusier"! Stewart, I have watched about 95 percent of your videos and I'm pretty sure you've mentioned this architect in most episodes! Thanks for having a French person pronounce it this time. Love your level of self-awareness with your most recent topics.
The French person pronounced it wrong: It's pronounced "Cor-Boooo..."
Manila Film Center is one of my favourite examples. Built by an evil dictator in the 80s, partly collapsed during construction and killed hundreds. People still alive in the quickly drying concrete got more poured on top of them. Since then, it’s been notorious for its ghost stories
And the Emperor's new clothes are perfect! fit him perfectly, and the way those gold and silver threads weave through the fabric to catch the light!
one of my favorite brutalist buildings is also the nearly completly underground "state museum of egyptian art" in Munich
it's basically just a stairway and a big block of concrete but the way it mimics the ancient tombs of egypt is so cool!!! and inside feels like delving into a pyramid (but with big nice windows too which shine light from above)
That image of the park with minimal grass or dirt but filled with bricked area just makes it feel like we control everything and we made it all look like adult playground, you can parkour everywhere, which is sick
I have no power to speak of and I kinda like Brutalism.
For me it very much depends. Brutalism can be nice and fitting, but also be cold and bland depending on how its context.
Brutalism is a style which I find very fitting for a prominent special building, like a church, museum or a city hall, because those buildings have importance and stature, which only gets increased by brutalism. In my opinion this is best shown in something like Kenzo Tange's St. Mary's Catherdral or Boston City hall. Particularly the combination of brick and concrete in Boston City hall works well, as it makes the building not completely uniform in its textures and materials (and therefore not bland like many other brutalist structures).
Yet at the same time Brutalism is a style which I really do not think is fitting for something like an entire city neighbourhood or university campus. Because these places tend to feel hostile and suffocating to be in and, particularly in winter when there's very little foliage, can thus be very depressing places. For something like a residential neighbourhood I'd really go for something more light and breathing rather than something heavy and dominant like brutalism.
I'm very much not a specialist when it comes to architecture, but those are my two cents to the discussion.
Your level of irony and subterfuge is so high in this last two videos that I don't know what's real anymore.
Either way. Boston City Hall will look far better if it was surrounded by a park with greenery rather than a brick wasteland.
Dude! These last two have been 🔥🔥🔥
Thank you!
My immediate reaction upon seeing Brutalist structures is to think that they should have Imperial Stormtroopers standing around outside them, which I think neatly captures the problem with the style, just as your point about trying to find positive examples of Brutalist architecture in films does.
Boston City Hall definitely presents as the evil Galactic Empire headquarters, at least at first glance.
Okay I do really like that city hall you opened with. Normally not my fav but, brutalism + plants? Is an amazing look
Important context: this is a CZcams video, so there's no way of conveying this, but Boston City Hall always smells like piss.
Now, you may assume that I'm making a crass joke at the expense of unfortunate homeless people; but I'm not. There's something about the building that compells us all to unzip and releave ourselves.
Finally! I worked at an architecture firm for a couple of years and always wondered about this. Thanks for making me feel sane again!
this video is very funny, loved the concept and self-awareness.
I'm not an architect, nor do I have any loyalty to the sacred cows of the discipline, but I absolutely loved the Barbican both times I visited it. It's like an open maze in the best way, perfect for exploring - climb that staircase overlooking the lake and there's a giant rooftop greenhouse. Also the video game Control, that sense of exploring a maze but none of the claustrophobia, big beautiful open spaces which are almost ecclesiastical. Touches the same part of my brain as Liverpool Anglican Cathedral - giant spaces but still made for humans.