4 ms·

I like Brutalism, and I speculate that one reason is that I grew up in a rural area where things are big, surfaces are rough, and there aren't decorative brickw

by cannam 6y ago

I like Brutalism, and I speculate that one reason is that I grew up in a rural area where things are big, surfaces are rough, and there aren't decorative brickwork patterns everywhere. I live in London now, and the brutalist Barbican estate feels a lot more like "the way the world is" to me than much of "traditional" residential London does. I think that arguments like the one in this article are born from overfamiliarity with pretty little patterns - I find the focus on decoration, "universal" aesthetics, and tradition quite suspicious. (In particular I'm surprised that the article picks on Alexandra Road estate in London - it's lovely in real life, and it answers a difficult problem as well, namely how to use a road just behind a railway track. Also, while the old Penn Station which the article praises looks kind of amazing in the pics, it's not exactly human scale is it? It'd surely have been just as shivery and daunting in real life as any Soviet edifice) I had been hoping that the answer to "Why you hate contemporary architecture" would be something about your age. Brutalism has become popular with many people of my age (I'm almost 50) but I don't think it was a widely popular style when it was new. The test for me is going to be postmodernism. I don't really like it, because it's about frivolous decoration, but it's going to be venerated by a younger generation just as Brutalism is by mine. Will I be able to understand that?

amiga_500 6y ago
I love barbican, but it also has lots of green and a vision of community. Same for Montreal's expo habitat 67. Some of the buildings in that article were revolting. That big white one with chunks for windows looks so childish and uninspiring.
rglullis 6y ago
The article does mention about some integration with nature, and from some Google pictures it seems that Barbican State has at least some greenery. > Brutalism has become popular with many people of my age. Has it really? Have you lived in any of the places you mentioned and consider nice? That has always been a better test than going by people's expressed opinions. In Brazil it is quite easy to find people that praise Oscar Niemeyer's work, but none of them actually live in Brasilia - and I am yet to see a catholic that has any good thing to say about Rio de Janeiro's Cathedral.
- cannam 6y ago
  > > Brutalism has become popular with many people of my age. > Has it really? Have you lived in any of the places you mentioned and consider nice? I can't afford to. I do know people who live in the Barbican estate, at least, and who love it. But it's a good question and I think quite right. My remark does sort of exhibit the same mistake that Brutalism was supposed to avoid - using public appreciation of aesthetic quality as a proxy for lived quality. And I also see that I'm praising the expensive, ambitious, now-unaffordable projects, not the ones that were "problematic" and then blown up, like Red Roads (in Glasgow) or Heygate (in London).
dafoex 6y ago
I agree to an extent. Brutalism can look very good, but I personally think it only works on small scales like houses. A brutalist skyscraper would look oppressive and imposing, towering above you like a Vogon ship about to demolish your planet to build a hyperspace lane. A brutalist house, however - while maybe not the most inviting place ever - looks simple and easy to maintain, a space you don't have to look after so that you can spend more time looking after yourself. I agree with the article where it says that some brutalist buildings would be entirely livable if there was some greenery, however. A place that allows you to look after yourself means nothing it it doesn't also provide the tools to help you achieve that goal, and access to nature has time and time again proven to benefit mental health for worldweary citydwellers, and as someone who suffers with clinical depression, I can very much vouch for the benefits of getting out of the four walls.
- cannam 6y ago
  > A brutalist skyscraper would look oppressive and imposing, towering above you like a Vogon ship about to demolish your planet to build a hyperspace lane. This is kind of my point though - Nature is like that. A daunting slab of concrete has a lot in common with a cliff face. An empty, open expanse of concrete is like the rocky hillside. Both are more like "the world" than a regular repetition of patterns in brick rising to two storeys high set off with a tiled roof. (Perhaps that's why they're offputting to people - too much like the unfiltered natural world, not enough comfortable regularisation.) There's no equivalent of the forest (the default natural covering for most of the world) in any of these forms of architecture, but it's not like it's any worse in the Brutalist model.
  - dafoex 6y ago
    You make a valid point, but I still would disagree. The closest cliffs I can think of that are just as stark and imposing would be Dover. They are dramatic, iconic, and even beautiful, but would you want to live there all year round? The winter sea crashing against the shore and gale force winds battering you would make you grateful of any shelter, but that's only because the forces of nature have made you feel helpless, pinning you against this bare rock face, far from the safety that other aspects of nature would willingly provide. I'd like to reiterate that I like brutalism, I'm just trying to convey that I think its very easy to overdo when you only consider the macro scale of a project.

by cannam 6y ago

amiga_500 6y ago

I love barbican, but it also has lots of green and a vision of community. Same for Montreal's expo habitat 67. Some of the buildings in that article were revolting. That big white one with chunks for windows looks so childish and uninspiring.

rglullis 6y ago

The article does mention about some integration with nature, and from some Google pictures it seems that Barbican State has at least some greenery. > Brutalism has become popular with many people of my age. Has it really? Have you lived in any of the places you mentioned and consider nice? That has always been a better test than going by people's expressed opinions. In Brazil it is quite easy to find people that praise Oscar Niemeyer's work, but none of them actually live in Brasilia - and I am yet to see a catholic that has any good thing to say about Rio de Janeiro's Cathedral.

cannam 6y ago
> > Brutalism has become popular with many people of my age. > Has it really? Have you lived in any of the places you mentioned and consider nice? I can't afford to. I do know people who live in the Barbican estate, at least, and who love it. But it's a good question and I think quite right. My remark does sort of exhibit the same mistake that Brutalism was supposed to avoid - using public appreciation of aesthetic quality as a proxy for lived quality. And I also see that I'm praising the expensive, ambitious, now-unaffordable projects, not the ones that were "problematic" and then blown up, like Red Roads (in Glasgow) or Heygate (in London).

dafoex 6y ago

I agree to an extent. Brutalism can look very good, but I personally think it only works on small scales like houses. A brutalist skyscraper would look oppressive and imposing, towering above you like a Vogon ship about to demolish your planet to build a hyperspace lane. A brutalist house, however - while maybe not the most inviting place ever - looks simple and easy to maintain, a space you don't have to look after so that you can spend more time looking after yourself. I agree with the article where it says that some brutalist buildings would be entirely livable if there was some greenery, however. A place that allows you to look after yourself means nothing it it doesn't also provide the tools to help you achieve that goal, and access to nature has time and time again proven to benefit mental health for worldweary citydwellers, and as someone who suffers with clinical depression, I can very much vouch for the benefits of getting out of the four walls.

cannam 6y ago
> A brutalist skyscraper would look oppressive and imposing, towering above you like a Vogon ship about to demolish your planet to build a hyperspace lane. This is kind of my point though - Nature is like that. A daunting slab of concrete has a lot in common with a cliff face. An empty, open expanse of concrete is like the rocky hillside. Both are more like "the world" than a regular repetition of patterns in brick rising to two storeys high set off with a tiled roof. (Perhaps that's why they're offputting to people - too much like the unfiltered natural world, not enough comfortable regularisation.) There's no equivalent of the forest (the default natural covering for most of the world) in any of these forms of architecture, but it's not like it's any worse in the Brutalist model.
- dafoex 6y ago
  You make a valid point, but I still would disagree. The closest cliffs I can think of that are just as stark and imposing would be Dover. They are dramatic, iconic, and even beautiful, but would you want to live there all year round? The winter sea crashing against the shore and gale force winds battering you would make you grateful of any shelter, but that's only because the forces of nature have made you feel helpless, pinning you against this bare rock face, far from the safety that other aspects of nature would willingly provide. I'd like to reiterate that I like brutalism, I'm just trying to convey that I think its very easy to overdo when you only consider the macro scale of a project.