An Introduction to Brutalism: The Iconic Postwar Architectural Style That Combined Utopianism and Concrete

The arti­fi­cial lan­guage of Esperan­to was con­ceived with high ideals in mind. In the eigh­teen-eight­ies, its cre­ator L. L. Zamen­hof envi­sioned it as the uni­ver­sal sec­ond lan­guage of human­i­ty, and if it has­n’t achieved that sta­tus by now, it at least remains the world’s most wide­ly spo­ken con­struct­ed aux­il­iary lan­guage. One fac­tor com­pli­cat­ing its spread is that no lan­guage, even one guid­ed by inter­na­tion­al­ism, can remain the same for long enough in two dif­fer­ent cul­tures. As in spo­ken and writ­ten lan­guages, so in the con­crete one of archi­tec­ture — and in the case of the style known as Bru­tal­ism, that would be lit­er­al con­crete. Meant to make human­i­ty whole again after the Sec­ond World War, its build­ings end­ed up being rather more par­tic­u­lar, and less utopi­an, than their archi­tects intend­ed.

Exam­ples aplen­ty appear in the new video above from Built Nar­ra­tive, which offers what amounts to a post­card tour of Bru­tal­ist (and Bru­tal­ism-adja­cent) build­ings from around the world. Named for its main mate­r­i­al béton brut, or raw con­crete, the style came into its own dur­ing the rebuild­ing of war-ruined sec­tions of British and con­ti­nen­tal Euro­pean cities — and, over in the U.S., the rapid pro­lif­er­a­tion and expan­sion of col­lege cam­pus­es — which had to be done quick­ly and under less-than-extrav­a­gant bud­gets.

Libraries, research facil­i­ties, city halls, admin­is­tra­tive build­ings, cour­t­hous­es, hous­ing projects: these are the sorts of struc­tures that most often took Bru­tal­ist form in the nine­teen-fifties, six­ties, and sev­en­ties, result­ing in the insti­tu­tion­al, bureau­crat­ic, and in some places total­i­tar­i­an asso­ci­a­tions it still has today.

Some pub­licly loathed Bru­tal­ist build­ings, like the Tri­corn Cen­tre in Portsmouth and the Third Church of Christ, Sci­en­tist in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. have been torn down, often after decades of neg­li­gent main­te­nance. Oth­ers, like the Bar­bi­can Estate in Lon­don or Habi­tat 67 in Mon­tre­al, are now beloved sites of pil­grim­age. Wide­ly acknowl­edged mas­ters of Bru­tal­ism include Le Cor­busier, who pio­neered it with build­ings like the Unité d’Habi­ta­tion in Mar­seille (not Berlin, con­tra the cap­tion in the video) and Ken­zo Tange (pro­nounced “tawn-gay,” not “tang” as the nar­ra­tor says it), whose work steered the Japan­ese ver­sion of the move­ment in its own sub­tle, some­times play­ful direc­tions. Now, thanks in part to the rapid dif­fu­sion of archi­tec­tur­al pho­tog­ra­phy made pos­si­ble by social media, a new enthu­si­ast of Bru­tal­ism seems to be born every minute. Even if they don’t believe that archi­tec­ture can bring a new world into being, they still feel the pull of a future that nev­er came — or, at any rate, has­n’t come yet.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Every­thing You Ever Want­ed to Know About the Beau­ty of Bru­tal­ist Archi­tec­ture: An Intro­duc­tion in Six Videos

Why Peo­ple Hate Bru­tal­ist Build­ings on Amer­i­can Col­lege Cam­pus­es

Why Do Peo­ple Hate Mod­ern Archi­tec­ture?: A Video Essay

Good­bye to the Nak­a­gin Cap­sule Tow­er, Tokyo’s Strangest and Most Utopi­an Apart­ment Build­ing

The World Accord­ing to Le Cor­busier: An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to the Most Mod­ern of All Archi­tects

An Espres­so Mak­er Made in Le Corbusier’s Bru­tal­ist Archi­tec­tur­al Style: Raw Con­crete on the Out­side, High-End Parts on the Inside

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.