Brutalist Buildings Are Back in Style — Except With Architects
Date Posted: December 27, 2019
Posted In: Discussion, Ideas,
From The Wall Street Journal: LONDON—Architectural writer Owen Hopkins says Yvonne Farrell is a Brutalist. Ms. Farrell, an architect, says no way.
Brutalism, the oft-derided architectural style of blockish buildings and naked concrete, is making a comeback. Fans have mobilized on social media, and there are waiting lists for apartment buildings once dubbed eyesores.
It’s just that some architects associated with the style want no part of the revival.
“When you talk about Brutalism, it’s a dangerous term. People could look at something and be repelled,” said Ms. Farrell, a partner at Grafton Architects, whose award-winning buildings are associated with that genre. She described her firm’s style “not as Brutalist, but as a framework for life.”
Eliot Hall at Washington University in St. Louis was dedicated in 1974.
Architectural styles fall into and out of fashion, but few have been as controversial as Brutalism. It flourished in the post World War II period of public-housing construction and tight budgets. It was known for gray concrete, no decoration and severe geometric lines. Boston City Hall and the Geisel Library in San Diego are frequently cited U.S. examples. Latin America abounds with such buildings.
All that raw concrete, however, didn’t always weather well. Some apartment buildings in poor communities weren’t maintained. Some people just found it ugly. The style soon fell out of favor.
Eliot Hall was demolished in 2012.
Brutalism’s current renaissance is reawakening critics who have lived and worked in the buildings—or spent decades trying to get them torn down.
London’s Balfron Tower, built in the 1960s, once had a reputation for crime and graffiti. After a recent remodeling, young professionals are snapping up 450-square-foot, one-bedroom apartments for more than £365,000 ($472,054).
Half of a neighboring Brutalist housing complex called Robin Hood Gardens was demolished in 2017. The Victoria & Albert Museum, the U.K.’s leading museum of art and design, bought a three-story piece. “Not only a style but also a philosophy, Brutalism sought to reframe the relationship between society, architecture and urbanism,” the museum explains on its website.
“Are they having a laugh?” asked Bodreo Islam, 36 years old, who has lived in Robin Hood Gardens for more than four years. “It looks like a slum.” He was standing outside a building where rusting steel poked through the concrete exterior.