Brutalism, worth saving?

[DCnPhilly]

I think this article is very short sighted, and I have a feeling Philadelphians will not unanimously share his opinion the way the New Yorkers in the comments section have. Nevertheless, this rant can surely spark conversation...

Atrocities Should Be Eliminated - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com

[MarketStEl]

I've already weighed in.

Brutalism's bad rap comes as much from the monotonousness and heaviness of so much of it as from any stylistic sins.

I also happen to like New Boston City Hall - and the old one too, which is an architectural sibling of Philadelphia's. But a lot of Brutalist buildings, like a lot of Modernist ones, are simply uninteresting - glass boxes, only made of concrete, if you will.

[seand]

Lets start with this local all concrete building.
Redirect Notice

Its the design not the raw concrete material.

[MarketStEl]

Lets start with this local all concrete building.
Redirect Notice

Its the design not the raw concrete material.

Fonthill, IMO, is more bizarre than any Brutalist building out there, because it weds a completely new (at the time) material to a form intended for some other material.

At least Brutalism works, as Frank Lloyd Wright insisted good architecture should, "in the nature of materials." (Never mind that Wright violated this principle egregiously all the time, at least when it came to their physical properties.)

[DCnPhilly]

Fonthill, IMO, is more bizarre than any Brutalist building out there, because it weds a completely new (at the time) material to a form intended for some other material.

At least Brutalism works, as Frank Lloyd Wright insisted good architecture should, "in the nature of materials." (Never mind that Wright violated this principle egregiously all the time, at least when it came to their physical properties.)

Gaudi used concrete a lot of its early days, and in a unique way too. It seems like architects and builders spent a while figuring out how best they could apply concrete beyond a purely utilitarian purpose, giving us places like Fonthill, Concete City, and a lot of bizarre Art Nouveau structures that look futuristic even by today's standards. Plastic went through a similar phase. Briefly an exotic substitute for glass used in high end purses and jewelry, it quickly became viewed as the cheap material it is. Both spent the next 50 years behind the scenes before reemerging as polyester and Brutalism. I think Brutalism was an attempt to revisit concrete as an artistic material. It treated concrete like concrete instead of simply using it to cheaply simulate other materials.

[Sharkfood]

I wonder if someday the "G-Ho Special" will be the darling of architectural historians.

[Bob_Head]

Brutalism, worth saving?

Short answer: No. Long answer: Nooooooooooooooooooo!

[eldondre]

Fonthill, IMO, is more bizarre than any Brutalist building out there, because it weds a completely new (at the time) material to a form intended for some other material.

At least Brutalism works, as Frank Lloyd Wright insisted good architecture should, "in the nature of materials." (Never mind that Wright violated this principle egregiously all the time, at least when it came to their physical properties.)

that seems to be a debatable statement. boston's city hall


I suppose the plaza might make an aggressively ugly building even more hostile as it looks like the plaza was constructed to make it easy to fire on approaching targets and provide some cover for city forces behind the wall

[supersupper]

that seems to be a debatable statement. boston's city hall

I suppose the plaza might make an aggressively ugly building even more hostile as it looks like the plaza was constructed to make it easy to fire on approaching targets and provide some cover for city forces behind the wall

The building has character, which is much more than one can say about most architectures. And to criticize a building for the plaza in front of it is ridiculous.




(though plazas without trees in general are ridiculous as well)





Same building YO, in case you didn't get the reference. Not that I think Versailles is great building (it's "marble" walls inside are faux )

[thoth]

You can criticize it for having a giant uggo plaza, like boston's city hall.

[eldondre]

The building has character, which is much more than one can say about most architectures. And to criticize a building for the plaza in front of it is ridiculous.

yes it would be so it's a good thing that I didn't criticize the building for the plaza. lots of things have character, so what? that doesn't make it great architecture or necessarily worth saving. my point being that it might not be so ugly if its context was less hostile...try as you might, it's not a piece of art hanging on a wall in a museum, it's context is relevant. perhaps if you altered the context, the building itself would appear less hostile. I don't see how you could disagree unless you believe that one's clothing choices don't alter one's appearance or other's perceptions of you.

(though plazas without trees in general are ridiculous as well)

oh, and here you are agreeing with me.

Same building YO, in case you didn't get the reference. Not that I think Versailles is great building (it's "marble" walls inside are faux )

oooh, you're so smart, a versaille reference. how can anyone disagree with you now? versaille is, of course, interesting not solely based on its exterior architectural merits, but because of its historical significance, and to a lesser extent interior detail/insight as well as its gardens (which some people really like). all in all, it's not terribly interesting from the outside but hardly aggressively ugly.

You can criticize it for having a giant uggo plaza, like boston's city hall.

boston probably needed it to defend against a peasant revolt.

[supersupper]

yes it would be so it's a good thing that I didn't criticize the building for the plaza. lots of things have character, so what? that doesn't make it great architecture or necessarily worth saving. my point being that it might not be so ugly if its context was less hostile...try as you might, it's not a piece of art hanging on a wall in a museum, it's context is relevant. perhaps if you altered the context, the building itself would appear less hostile. I don't see how you could disagree unless you believe that one's clothing choices don't alter one's appearance or other's perceptions of you.

Yes I do think things with character are worth saving if they can be used. "Saving" architecture is a weird thing in the US. It's weird how we do nothing but tear down buildings just to build cheaper and resultantly uglier things.

my point being that it might not be so ugly if its context was less hostile...try as you might, it's not a piece of art hanging on a wall in a museum, it's context is relevant. perhaps if you altered the context, the building itself would appear less hostile. I don't see how you could disagree unless you believe that one's clothing choices don't alter one's appearance or other's perceptions of you.

I'll take that to mean then that you don't totally write off Brutalism. (Interestingly, i read the new Barnes described by a critic as "neo-Brutalism"). The architect in this case may have taken the position that you'd look ridiculous wearing a tee shirt and jeans to a wedding/funeral, or a suit & tie to dig a ditch.

oh, and here you are agreeing with me.

oops, sorry about that.

oooh, you're so smart, a versaille reference. how can anyone disagree with you now?

Doesn't take a smart person to know about Versailles. Everyone knows it. Thats why I chose it for you..... oh c'mon you walked right into that.

versaille is, of course, interesting not solely based on its exterior architectural merits, but because of its historical significance, and to a lesser extent interior detail/insight as well as its gardens (which some people really like). all in all, it's not terribly interesting from the outside but hardly aggressively ugly.

The two types of spaces on either side of it contribute to it's grandiosity (not that I'm a fan) yet neither type really helps or hurts the building itself as architecture.

I like the municipal services building in front of city hall, even thought it's plaza really sucks.

Though certainly some buildings are fully defined by their surroundings, such as the Philip Johnson's glass house (another easy one for you)

Does the Yale school of architecture come off better in a university setting?

[brandywine]

I think this article is very short sighted, and I have a feeling Philadelphians will not unanimously share his opinion the way the New Yorkers in the comments section have. Nevertheless, this rant can surely spark conversation...

Atrocities Should Be Eliminated - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com

Rip all of them down! Well not all....leave one standing to illustrate what not to design,build or save. As Grojlart says......buildings made of sidewalk suck.

[DCnPhilly]

......buildings made of sidewalk suck.

LOL, fair point. But Gaudi's Sagrada Familia is made of sidewalk too. Just playing Devil's Advocate there.

But as far as Brutalism goes, I think some of it is good and some of it is had. I love The Rohm and Haas Building but I hate The Gallery. Brutalism is cold and intimidating, but a lot of classical movements were designed to be the same.

It's also impossible to say how history will view Brutalism. 50 years after Philadelphia City Hall was built we were trying to tear it down because it was so "ugly." I'm not saying I like Brutalism. I think it was a trendy excuse to be cheap. Still, you can't deny, ugly as it may be, some of it is interesting to look at. Even if it feels like you're about to dock on the Death Star.

[MarketStEl]

Gaudi used concrete a lot of its early days, and in a unique way too. It seems like architects and builders spent a while figuring out how best they could apply concrete beyond a purely utilitarian purpose, giving us places like Fonthill, Concete City, and a lot of bizarre Art Nouveau structures that look futuristic even by today's standards. Plastic went through a similar phase. Briefly an exotic substitute for glass used in high end purses and jewelry, it quickly became viewed as the cheap material it is. Both spent the next 50 years behind the scenes before reemerging as polyester and Brutalism. I think Brutalism was an attempt to revisit concrete as an artistic material. It treated concrete like concrete instead of simply using it to cheaply simulate other materials.

Gaudi's melting buildings are themselves as new and novel as the material he used to build them - they do express the more "plastic" nature of concrete in a way no other concrete structures had before or have since.

Speaking of melting: Salvador Dali was a Spaniard too; was he also Catalan? Maybe they both had access to the same mind-altering substances.

that seems to be a debatable statement. boston's city hall


I suppose the plaza might make an aggressively ugly building even more hostile as it looks like the plaza was constructed to make it easy to fire on approaching targets and provide some cover for city forces behind the wall

You and I will simply have to agree to disagree on the asethetic merits of New Boston City Hall. I find a certain appeal in the rhythm of its upper stories, which express their bureaucratic nature well, and the building has the easiest-to-read-from-the-outside mayor's office of any city hall in the country, perhaps the world.

Of course, that huge opening over the main entrance also looks like it was designed for surveillance. "Defensible Space" had been published right around the time work began on Government Center, and the design of City Hall and its plaza incorporates many of its principles. So do Washington Metro stations, which I also admire. But in general, I do find "defensible space" forbidding, foreboding and hostile, and your points on that subject are well taken.

FWIW, I've seen plenty of buildings less attractive than the Yale School of Architecture. The belt freeways that ring our major cities are lined with them, and most of those don't qualify as Brutalist.

[DCnPhilly]

Gaudi's melting buildings are themselves as new and novel as the material he used to build them - they do express the more "plastic" nature of concrete in a way no other concrete structures had before or have since.

True. Although Gaudi and Brutalists both used concrete for what it was. Ugly or not, they didn't shy away from it as a decorative material.

We still pave our homes in the same concrete, we just cast it to look like stone or brick.

[Scoats]

Brutalism really is pretty fascinating. It's only architectural style that I can think of that is pretty much all "fail". Other styles, like Victorian, got old and ratty, looked bad and were replaced with shiny and new. I can see how Brutalism would have looked good in concept but once the buildings actually started getting built, I would have thought the style would have died sooner.

Franklin Court, especially the museum section (currently being remodeled), is/was a fascinating study in Brutalism. All ugly concrete, it was meant move masses of visitors in and out with a minimum of maintenance cost. Which it does/did, but in the most depressing way. Contrast that with the current Liberty Bell pavilion, which is quite a joy to travel through, but which also is built to move the masses in and out with as little wear and tear as possible.

Sorry Sandy, Boston's City Hall is hideous. Maybe if the court yard was greened up the building wouldn't be a bad.

It's not the material; it's Brutalism's complete lack of warmth and humanity. Gauldi is the opposite of Brutalism. His buildings are rich and alive. Unlike brutalists who thought giant barren concrete plazas would somehow be appealing. Gaudi really got public spaces; Park Guell is worth the trip to Barcelona alone. Rockefeller Center is mostly concrete too, but it's really beautiful and human. It's not the material; it's Brutalism's complete lack of warmth and humanity.

Which brings up back to the question, is Brutalism worth saving? I don't think so. Unlike those of us who regret all the lost Furness buildings, I don't believe future generations will wonder why we got rid of it.

[Naveen]

I've already weighed in.

Brutalism's bad rap comes as much from the monotonousness and heaviness of so much of it as from any stylistic sins.

I also happen to like New Boston City Hall - and the old one too, which is an architectural sibling of Philadelphia's. But a lot of Brutalist buildings, like a lot of Modernist ones, are simply uninteresting - glass boxes, only made of concrete, if you will.

The only reason to preserve Boston's City Hall is as a lesson of how bad ideas can be brought to life. It's like when you watch a terrible, big-budget Hollywood movie and think "This actually got made. They spent X million dollars, and years making this, and no one with the power to do so, thought or was able to stop it from being made."

I can only believe that the reason buildings like this were ever erected was because in the midst of middle-class flight, no one with any good sense cared enough to stop it.

[BarryG]

Brutalism really is pretty fascinating. It's only architectural style that I can think of that is pretty much all "fail". Other styles, like Victorian, got old and ratty, looked bad and were replaced with shiny and new. I can see how Brutalism would have looked good in concept but once the buildings actually started getting built, I would have thought the style would have died sooner.

Franklin Court, especially the museum section (currently being remodeled), is/was a fascinating study in Brutalism. All ugly concrete, it was meant move masses of visitors in and out with a minimum of maintenance cost. Which it does/did, but in the most depressing way. Contrast that with the current Liberty Bell pavilion, which is quite a joy to travel through, but which also is built to move the masses in and out with as little wear and tear as possible.

Sorry Sandy, Boston's City Hall is hideous. Maybe if the court yard was greened up the building wouldn't be a bad.

It's not the material; it's Brutalism's complete lack of warmth and humanity. Gauldi is the opposite of Brutalism. His buildings are rich and alive. Unlike brutalists who thought giant barren concrete plazas would somehow be appealing. Gaudi really got public spaces; Park Guell is worth the trip to Barcelona alone. Rockefeller Center is mostly concrete too, but it's really beautiful and human. It's not the material; it's Brutalism's complete lack of warmth and humanity.

Which brings up back to the question, is Brutalism worth saving? I don't think so. Unlike those of us who regret all the lost Furness buildings, I don't believe future generations will wonder why we got rid of it.

I agree, and in addition to the lack of humanity and the ugliness from the outside (which is subjective, I guess), it usually extended to the insides, too, which I really cannot understand. I can imagine city planners getting excited about modern looking buildings and even the plazas, but it's hard to imagine someone thinking that tiny little windows and narrow, awkward offices would be a good idea. Especially in a university setting, where many of these buildings got built, all over the country, over and over again.

[Naveen]

Especially in a university setting, where many of these buildings got built, all over the country, over and over again.

Gropius designed a dorm at Harvard Law. Even worse on the inside than out.