Brutalism

I 

Brutalist architecture was born out of a need to produce large scale, affordable housing and public spaces quickly and cheaply after post war bomb damage to infrastructure.

Its title is suggestive of the often harsh looking, brutal aesthetic of this movement it however also refers to  "benton brut"- raw concreate in french and is a pun or twist on this phrase.

similarity the term art brut meats raw art.

Its key properties are visibility of raw materials, concrete, steal , glass and brick, its minimalist,  geometric and monochrome.

From the 50's to the 70s brutalist style architecture was used for high rise flats, shopping centres and lots of government projects over England.

The style received a lot of criticism for its harsh, cold , grey atheistic especially as it was so prominent in public spaces.

Growing up in the 80s, my school, local shopping centre and near by housing was very much in this style and I've always associated it with cheap, bleak, grey towns.

However at the high end there are some amazing  brutalist architecture that is totally awe inspiring.

A lot of brutalist architecture was replaced, modernised. The moment is now seen as a important historical moment in design and many of these grand structures are listed and protected. Beyond the celebrated structures through Europe and the world, ironically most of he places in the uk outside of the capital that have hung on to this architecture have done so out of a lack  of funds for regeneration rather than an appreciation of the movement.

In terms of this project, Ilkeston has a mix of architecture styles including elements of brutalism. In terms of artist like Rachel Whitered casting the internal of a home in concreate and exposing it as an out door building looks very brutalist and working in the simple box forms and cheap cardboard has a brutalist cost effective element to it also.

Idelwells shopping centre Sutton in Ashfiled.
A vision from my childhood complete with the now obsolete Woolworths. This has been demolished now and rebuild.

Nottingham City car park

Photograph I took of a carpark in Ilkeston, I found this quite interesting in a bleak way.

CBR HQ, Brussels, Belgium by Constantin Brodzki

This building is really impressive and shows the beauty of brutalism as functional architecture.
The addition of mirrors and the roundness of the windows makes it feel a little friendlier looking to me than the usual tower block.