brutal words

Grimy, raw, thunderous, chunky, heavy, threatening, intimidating, crumbling, daunting, disconcerting, disharmony, cacophony, monstrosity. Brutalism has not had the easiest journey in earning a place in people’s hearts and a site in their cities. In fact, being perhaps the most controversial architectural movement that mankind has ever seen and essentially invented, it has been through lots of ups and downs.

Unlike other movements that also derive from the ‘’umbrella term for a whole host of derived architectural styles’’ (Reading 2018, p.7) that modernism is, brutalism only has lovers and haters; there is no in-between. This division on public reaction towards the movement is somehow intentional and much diplomatically insidious, one could argue. As much as brutalist buildings wish to be, they wish to be seen; they ask for one’s attention. Brutalism does not compromise solely with its existence; it seeks for presence. ‘’Brutalist buildings have presence, they have drama. They don’t have to be big, necessarily, but they have to be bold, to intimidate – to live up to their billing; to brutalise.’’ (Reading 2018, p.15)

What is brutalism’s motives though? Why would an architectural movement seek for attention anyway? The answer lies in architecture’s political nature itself. Lebbeus Woods very unscrupulously stated in 1992 that architecture is by nature a political act. Brutalism in no case consists an exception of that and as such carries its own messages. For some, brutalism expresses ‘’an honest expression of socialist ideals – equality in housing, access to the arts for all – architecture as a social leveller’’, while others perceive it as ‘’the failed socialist ideals of a generation, indicative in the poor condition of grimy concrete’’ (Reading 2018, p.5).

One’s reaction towards the movement depends on his political views in context to his time in this world. An adversary of socialist ideals would never fall for brutalist architecture but rather argue that it ‘’should be resigned to the dustbin of history – we should accept that they failed, call them ‘concrete monstrosities’, sweep them away and start again’’ (Reading 2018, p.5). Contrary to that perspective, some generations were raised in times of more generous welfare states and therefore for such people ‘’these buildings and their materials are not threatening, but representative of something important’’ (Reading 2018, p.57).

Whether one belongs to the ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’ camp, he can only accepts and appreciates the ambition, confidence, and dynamism of a brutalist masterpiece. They, with their honesty to materials, drama of their composition, and their ‘as found’ ethic, succeeded in marking their place in the history of humanity. So instead, shall we call brutalism ‘pure’ rather than ‘grimy’, ‘honest’ rather than ‘threatening’, and ‘encouraging’ rather than ‘daunting’?