You’re not on mine.
It has minimalist elements for sure but I think that’s one part of Brutalism. It looks like you can see where some of the beams are. It’s very square.
The concrete doesn’t look raw though. If it’s Brutalist, it’s (to me) one of the non-repulsive examples without being all that attractive.
I think all that is needed to make them more appealing is the ministrations of a flying squad of graffiti artists.
BTW, before Modern, this was people’s idea of an ugly building.
Oddly enough, I can see what they meant too, it is rather over the top - a sort of Neauveau Riche idea of classic style but overcooking it.
No, that’s not a Brutalist structure. You can clearly see natural materials and human scales at play in the design. Each room has an obvious purpose that other humans can recognize. Thus it does not partake in the totalitarian sameness, poured concrete ugliness, and interior uselessness that usually characterizes Brutalism. In most ways, Frank Lloyd Wright was the opposite of a Brutalist designer, his style is known as “Organic architecture” because it attempts to bring the environment and natural world into the building. That’s exactly what Brutalism is trying NOT to do.
Yeah, but even if it’s “overcooked” it’s visually interesting and pretty, unlike anything Brutalist. Brutalist stuff is like staring at a pile of soggy flour and being told that it’s a cake.
This is a building used to store equipment, not for living space or offices. Calling it brutalist is kind of silly, since it isn’t designed for people.
Well, to be fair, neither is brutalist stuff. 
Brutalist cake!
It’s honest, heroic, of the people!
And Malthus is in for the win!
Technically not brutalist living accomodations, but instead what brutalist design models itself after:
http://www.itravelqq.com/uploadfile/2010/1108/20101108023253151.jpg
http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00894/SNF24SPD5-682_894842a.jpg
If a Brutalist’s buildings layout is confusing, or the building doesn’t function well, then it has probably been badly designed. This is the architect’s fault, not Brutalism’s. If you say the building looks dingy, or have other aesthetic problems with it, that’s valid, and may or may not be a fault of the style – but it doesn’t mean Brutalism has failed.
And where you see living or working in sewers, bridges and bunkers, others see living or working in castles, temples, and monuments. Most non-Brutalist modern buildings have been modeled after industrial architecture. Have you also been “tricked” into inhabiting warehouses, auto plants and workshops?
It may be an artistic success, though it doesn’t sound like it has been a functional one. The materials you showed looked quite lovely, and the main ideas sound great in theory. I guarantee you that the architect’s made hundreds of models and evaluated tons of materials – this is common practice. You say it’s slippery when wet and your heels get stuck in it, and there are sometimes stairs and ramps. None of these things are uncommon in cities. It sucks that it doesn’t work well, I’m not arguing with you there – horrible material choice on the part of the architects. But using this to justify saying “there is no public relations in architecture” is absurd.
[QUOTE=Ludovic]
I’m sure people have touched on this before in the thread, but this speaks to why architecture can be so reviled, because it’s an artistic statement by the architect, but people have to live in and see it every day as well (as opposed to other types of art which you can avoid if you think they’re ugly*).
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True, not everyone is going to like every artistic statement. But it’s better than no artistic statement. A built environment designed by engineers and contractors might work well, gracer’s square might function better as a flat asphalt plane with some benches, but it’s not a place I’d want to live. This is why architects are important, even when they make mistakes.
[QUOTE=gracer]
Hey, that gives me an idea: architects have to put on a display of their concept first. They have to have models, and show the materials (and they have to be wet too) and actors walking around on the materials etc. If it’s popular in the sense that people want to live it can be set up down town. Otherwise it can just be art in a museum. Win-win.
[/QUOTE]
Not win-win. As I said before, architects already do mock-ups, models, material checks, etc. If you’re suggesting a popular vote on which architecture gets built, an American Idol of buildings… I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic when I say that it would destroy the art form.
The problem here is that “castles, temples and monuments” all have their own functions - castles are designed for defence, temples to evoke worship and to hold ceremonies, and monuments to evoke memory.
When one is designing a library, or an apartment building, or an administrative centre, what sense does it make to have it designed like a “castle”? No more sense than to design a castle that is designed like a “library”. The only difference is that while a castle designed like a library would probably kill its users if they were attacked, a library designed like a castle just causes annoyance and inconvenience. That’s aside from the overall ugliness and gloom created by the aesthetic.
This is particularly relevant, because the worst brutalist eyesore I know of (and one mentioned by Muffin as well) is a library that has been likened, by its detractors (well, that’s almost everyone who had to use it) as a ‘castle’ - one of its nicknames is “Fort Book”: Robarts Library at U of T. 
Thing is, if brutalism was aesthetically pretty (but unsuitable) that would be one thing; if it was aesthetically ugly but highly functional that would be another … but aesthetically ugly and unsuitable - its hard to understand what could recommend that.
…I kinda like it, actually. Seems cozy. Just add a coupla blast doors to break up the spaces, sweep out the rats and C.H.U.D. droppings, and I think it’d work.
…you know, I think that actually works pretty good as an analogy.
Here’s the Brutalist cake I like:
Here’s the Brutalist Cake I don’t like:
(And I wasn’t quite sure I could find a good photo example of Baroque Cake…are there any gaudy wedding cakes that were found buried with a mummy?)
It’s not Brutalist, but I doubt it would exist if Brutalism hadn’t happened.
[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
Yeah, but even if it’s “overcooked” it’s visually interesting and pretty, unlike anything Brutalist. Brutalist stuff is like staring at a pile of soggy flour and being told that it’s a cake.
[/QUOTE]
Brutalism can be visually interesting and pretty.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
The problem here is that “castles, temples and monuments” all have their own functions - castles are designed for defence, temples to evoke worship and to hold ceremonies, and monuments to evoke memory.
When one is designing a library, or an apartment building, or an administrative centre, what sense does it make to have it designed like a “castle”? No more sense than to design a castle that is designed like a “library”. The only difference is that while a castle designed like a library would probably kill its users if they were attacked, a library designed like a castle just causes annoyance and inconvenience. That’s aside from the overall ugliness and gloom created by the aesthetic.
[/QUOTE]
You’re talking about function, and I agree: a library shouldn’t function like a castle, or a sewer, or a house. I’m talking about aesthetics: what does a “library” look like and why can’t it look castle-like or temple-like, or be made of raw concrete, or be blocky? The building you mentioned sounds both functionally and stylistically castle-like – the first is bad, the second is debatable. I find the library (if I’m looking at the right link) really grand and impressive.
IMO it is not Brutalism’s, or any other school’s (International, Modern, Deconstructive…), fault as a concept in itself when architects, builders, developers and contract adjudicators get into their heads to thow it at every location and application whether or not it’s suited(*), or worse yet take the lazy way out and just toss together a bunch of characteristic elements and when someone says “that doesn’t look right” handwave it away by saying “oh, it’s [School X] style”.
(The DC Third Church of Christ Scientist building was a particularly headscratching example… barely 40 years old and even the church itself* wants it gone)
I have worked in buildings of various styles and schools and haven’t felt the Brutalist ones were particularly worse functionality-wise. But that may be because they’ve been mostly academic or government buildings and by the time I got to any of them, successive managements had already gotten to ruining the insides with bad remodelings..
Y’know, I had wondered the exact same thing. Wouldn’t that be something.
Toast,
In your third link, there is a church in the brutalist style.
A brutalist church wouldn’t have seats just for show, right? If there’s a seat or bench, it’s for sitting, right?
People sit on these?
What do you want, a Barcalounger?
I wouldn’t want it for my office chair, but as a place to sit for a bit and pray/worship/whatever you do in churches, why not? It has an ascetic, monastic feel to it that seems appropriate. Other photos show standard wood benches for the congregation during services.
Christ… I went to Normandy once, visited the beaches of the Normandy landings, and had a chance to go into one of the German bunkers still standing.
Inside that bunker was just like that photo. Are you sure it’s not a photo of a bunker from the Atlantic Wall…?
You wouldn’t get me going into that church, not even if you paid me money. What a horrid thing!
Oh, and I concur with gracer: I go more or less often-ish to Rotterdam, and Schouwburgplein is a festering carbuncle in the middle of the city. Apart from being the most hideously inconvenient and scary thing to walk through, especially in wet weather (wet weather in the Netherlands? Who’d have thunk…!)
Being originally from Spain, I have seen what crimes some of our “celebrity architects” have committed. Bofill father and son are particularly egregious there. Their “renewal” of the airport terminal in Barcelona for the 1992 olympics was laughable – their redesign of the main stairway leading to the baggage belts ended up costing quite a few broken legs. And the less said about the monstrosity that is “Walden 7”, the better.
Sorry, but I have zero respect for architects and architecture in general; they strike me as caring only for the “design” aspect of the buildings and structures they perpetrate. The users and the poor souls who have to live there? I have the feeling that, in their heart of hearts, architects are all like “The users? Fuck them!”
