3 ms·
I think the biggest flaw in brutalism is that it does not suffer hacks well. Badly done, it looks and performs worse than just about any other style of archite
by daotoad 6y ago
I think the biggest flaw in brutalism is that it does not suffer hacks well. Badly done, it looks and performs worse than just about any other style of architecture. You get hideous boxes with conduit everywhere.
None of the brutalist buildings I've actually been in suffered from confusing floorplans or lack of storage. The tendency is more for big, striking open spaces and wide walkways.
In the Pacific Northwest there's a recent trend to build a lot of ugly boxy townhomes and small apartment buildings in a neo-brutalist style. One notable features of these buildings is big, smooth rectangular panels in their outer cladding. They often look like the builder just got a bunch of OSB sheets, painted them dark brown and tacked them up as siding. Add thoughtless placement of conduit and vents and the interaction between window locations and the lazy siding, and you have a sloppy mess of unintentional asymmetry and unevenness.
If you are going to have your conduit hanging out as an architectural feature, you have to treat it like an architectural feature and think about how its placement and routing impacts visual balance and rhythm as well as the functional issues of delivering power, water, and ventilation. It's not just a license to nail something up and omit the trim.