Brutalism

A polarizing approach.... driven by necesity

Barbican Center, London - Daniel Case cc 3.0

Emerging in the post-ww-IIworld, brutalism used a very basic material, concrete, formed into in simple shapes. Writing in Architectural Digest, Katherine McLaughlin explained further:

Brutalist architecture is a style of building design developed in the 1950s in the United Kingdom following World War II. With an emphasis on construction and raw materials, the aesthetic evolved as reconstruction efforts were underway in the post-war era.

Barbican Center

Barbican Center, or the Barbican, is a post World War Two housing development constructed on a largely bombed out section of old London intended initially as housing for middle income professionals. According to the building website:

The Barbican’s architects, Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, seized the opportunity to propose a radical transformation in how we live in buildings and cities.

The website further adds:

Home to some 4,000 residents across 2,000 flats, organised around schools, a church, a library, an artificial lake, conservatory and an entire arts centre, no detail was left unconsidered, from the top of the 40 storey towers to the basement theatre and cinemas.

At the end of World War II, the UK was dealing with over one million dead or missing, combined from the two wars. To put that in context, the United States suffered approximately 500,000 dead or missing in the two conflicts but from a more significant population. The point is that the World Wars calamitously impacted English society. This was a catalyst for change. For example, The National Health Service Act was passed in 1946, providing citizens free point of service health care.

As a part of this “ we can change the world” sentiment, the Barbican Center council housing emerged as an urban planning alternative. In the US, it might now be called a mixed-use development, offering an impressive range of services for the residents. For example:

• Barbican Hall: home of the Longdon Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

• Barbican Theatre: for the Royal Shakespeare Company

• The Pit: theatre venue

• Barbican Art Gallery

• Barbican Film: 3 cinema screens

• Barbican Library: Public library

• Restaurants: 3

• Conference halls: 7

• Trade exhibition halls: 2

In the “we can make a better world” post-war optimism, the Barbican as a “city in a city” was intended, among other things, as an idea meant to prevent cities from emptying out as workers returned to their homes elsewhere. Even the critics of brutalism accept the practical considerations of the era. The Europe of the late 40s and early 50s needed desperately to rebuild from the war’s destruction. The competition for building materials led architects to favor reinforced concrete since it was relatively inexpensive and reasonably available. Chamberlin, Powell and Bon (CPB) were the architects for the Barbican, and they approached it as designing an entire neighborhood. The architects defined the targeted demographic:

Young professionals, likely to have a taste for Mediterranean holidays, French food and Scandinavian design.

To the architects' credit, they were able to “liven up” the concrete with a bush-hammered finish and by forming it into many interesting shapes, for which they are justly well-known and admired.

Barbican, 2024 - via artlyft.com

Boston City Hall

Boston City Hall - Andrew San cc 2.0

Opened in 1968 and designed by Gerhard Kallmann and Michael McKinnell, Boston City Hall has spent its entire existence as a source of debate. For example the website https://www.buildworld.co.uk/ called it the 4th ugliest building in the world. Whoa. The building is not for me…..but not sure if it is the 4th ugliest in the world. However, when I saw it first on a gray Boston day with half-melted snow all around it, I did not see a very inviting structure.

Habitat 67 in Montreal

Habitat 67 was part of the 1967 world's fair in Montreal, known as Expo 67, and was designed by the now world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie. However, at the time of his design, he was still a student at Mcgill University. The story goes that Safdie used so many Lego pieces in working on Habitat 67 that he wiped out the city's inventories.

The project was meant to blend the best aspects of suburban homes—such as gardens, fresh air, privacy, etc —with the economics and density of a modern urban apartment.

Below is a replica of the model done by a Lego employee years later. Now includes as a part of “Lego Ideas.”

The final design was for 158 identical prefabricated concrete elements that would be used to produce different-sized dwellings…..exactly the way you build with Legos. From where I sit, the cleverness of this design leverages concrete as a building material more than when reinforced concrete is simply used as a mass of inexpensive material.

Geisel Library, San Diego

Geisel Library, San Diego -Amerique cc 3.0

The University of California at San Diego library was designed by William Pereira and opened in 1971 as the Central Library, later renamed in 1995 to the Geisel, for benefactors Audrey and Theodor Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss. A 1965 rendering for the project is shown below. An astounding effort that made brutalism more palatable.

The Geisel Library appears to be brutalism meeting futurism. Fair enough.

Coca-Cola HQ, Atlanta

If you drive from the Atlanta airport to the northern suburbs, you will travel under the watchful eye of the Coca-Cola headquarters. I came to Atlanta regularly on business from 1983 to 2012, before I finally moved here. In my mind, the “big corporate three” who powered Atlanta were, in no particular order, Coca-Cola, Delta, and Home Depot. That said, the architecture of the Cole HQ always seemed slightly at odds with the brand image. The building opened in 1979 and was designed by FABRA, as the firm was known then. don’t want to suggest that the building should be a glass tower with the glass being the color of the iconic Coke bottles of days gone by.. But perhaps a little more interesting a structure would have been nice

Maybe you’ve guessed that I’m not the biggest fan of brutalism. But after the war, a giant portion of the world and almost all of Western Europe needed housing, schools, almost the entire built environment. The architects that used concrete as best they could met the mark in history. They provided “shelter from the storm.” Seeing it in that light, who cannot admire brutalism.