Perhaps the aesthetic equivalent of licorice, Brutalism is revered and reviled with equal vehemence. Proponents find appeal in its rough, usually concrete, textural finishes, while detractors have called for the removal of what they consider to be ugly, stained, bunkerlike structures. Brutalist buildings have found themselves in precarious preservation territory of late; many, some over 60 years old, have fallen into disrepair, yet are ineligible for landmark status, resulting in emotionally devastating demolitions such as Alison and Peter Smithson’s Robin Hood Gardens’ in London, built in 1972 and torn down in 2017. Supporters fear additional losses and want to document these buildings before they disappear—therefore spurring a spate of books and conferences.
Brutalism’s substantive meaning has conflicting origin myths. In the UK, the Smithsons gave the term “New Brutalism” to a warehouse-vernacular aesthetic with an emphasis on as-found materiality, usually brick and concrete. In 1955, critic Reyner Banham cited the Smithsons’ work as crucial to this movement; his 1966 book, The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic?, further disseminated the term. Le Corbusier’s use of béton brut—exemplified by his Unité d’Habitation social housing projects of the 1950s, along with the architecture of Paul Rudolph and others in the United States in the 1960s—helped shift the defining characteristic of Brutalism from raw materiality to raw concrete, the literal translation of the French term.
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