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I think that context matters. Coming out of the 1940's, where fascism preyed on nostalgia and fear, brutalism brings forward a concept of the future that is bo

I think that context matters. Coming out of the 1940's, where fascism preyed on nostalgia and fear, brutalism brings forward a concept of the future that is both fearless and lacks nostalgia. Not seeing the world through your imagination of how you want to see it, but how it really is. Unlike Albert's Spear's or Mussolini's Roman and Greek inspired pieces (setting EUR aside), a brutalist view is honest, simple, and looking forward. There are, of course, counter-examples like the Eastern European memorials - which sometimes favored a heavy grandeur. My take on this is that designers look at something like a concrete building and thing "big", "ugly", "no-like" and then make something that rejects the current overly-clean, friendly design of most sites. It's not brutalist in the sense it is trying to move to a vision of the future free from deception and nostalgia, it's more dank basement bar and garage band esthetic. Some of those sites look like they could be the covers of 1980 punk or new-wave albums. I could see some of it on a Dickies album cover or promoting some 1982 art-house film about sadistic chipmunks.

jrochkind1 4y ago
Good points. There's probably no way for any contemporary design to capture that historical contextual element of brutalism (or modernism in general), that was a stance particular to that period of time, you can't have that same stance toward the past/future now with an extra 100 years of past behind us and what has happened in it... (And of course it should be said that both Italian and German fascist architecture could also be big into modernism, and a "concept of the future that is fearless", and even in some ways "lacks nostalgia". Fascism is nothing if not contradictory.) I still think there's something notable about the "draw attention to it being a computer screen" that is notable about the designs in OP -- that OP doesn't actually discuss much -- whether or not we call it "brutalism". Interestingly though, I also want to say it kind of wants to draw attention to it's artificiality in a way that seems very contrary to brutalism. Perhaps since the computer screen is such an artificial "simulacrum" kind of environment in the first place, to draw attention to it's true nature is to promote a kind of artificiality, when to draw attention to the true nature of a physical building was in the 20th century thought of as a dismissal of artifice. Anyway, this is maybe getting pretty far afield, but interesting stuff!
philwelch 4y ago
> Coming out of the 1940's, where fascism preyed on nostalgia and fear, brutalism brings forward a concept of the future that is both fearless and lacks nostalgia. Ah, that explains why brutalist buildings look so much like all those concrete bunkers and flak towers that Germany built during the war. It all makes sense now.

jrochkind1 4y ago

Good points. There's probably no way for any contemporary design to capture that historical contextual element of brutalism (or modernism in general), that was a stance particular to that period of time, you can't have that same stance toward the past/future now with an extra 100 years of past behind us and what has happened in it... (And of course it should be said that both Italian and German fascist architecture could also be big into modernism, and a "concept of the future that is fearless", and even in some ways "lacks nostalgia". Fascism is nothing if not contradictory.) I still think there's something notable about the "draw attention to it being a computer screen" that is notable about the designs in OP -- that OP doesn't actually discuss much -- whether or not we call it "brutalism". Interestingly though, I also want to say it kind of wants to draw attention to it's artificiality in a way that seems very contrary to brutalism. Perhaps since the computer screen is such an artificial "simulacrum" kind of environment in the first place, to draw attention to it's true nature is to promote a kind of artificiality, when to draw attention to the true nature of a physical building was in the 20th century thought of as a dismissal of artifice. Anyway, this is maybe getting pretty far afield, but interesting stuff!

philwelch 4y ago

> Coming out of the 1940's, where fascism preyed on nostalgia and fear, brutalism brings forward a concept of the future that is both fearless and lacks nostalgia. Ah, that explains why brutalist buildings look so much like all those concrete bunkers and flak towers that Germany built during the war. It all makes sense now.