Brutalist Architecture Discussion Thread!

[GaryReggae 80]

Ah, I promised to post some pics of '60s interiors. Ironically, these came out of a book called 'boring postcards'. I highly reccomend it! If anyone else has any 60s interiors, please post them here!


Scratchwood motorway services, the grill room.


Corley Services, M4



More motorway services

[p2h5 3]

Date: 11/11/2005 12:49:31 PM Author: GaryReggae Ah, I promised to post some pics of '60s interiors.  Ironically, these came out of a book called 'boring postcards'.  I highly reccomend it!  If anyone else has any 60s interiors, please post them here! 

quote>

 

I have that book too! I actually seem to stockpile design books.  There is a Taschen one too called Bizarro Postcards

 

Verner Panton above and below

 

 

Joe Colombo, below

 

 

Eero Aarnio's Ball Chairs at the International Design Fair in 1966

 

 

His bubble chairs in a lounge in Frankfurt Airport

 

 

These are more funky space age 60s interiors, not quite the depressing more brutalist ones which you posted earlier.

 

Eero Saarinen (who was also a 60s furniture designer, and did the TWA JKF terminal and the St. Louis arch) designed this very brutalist War Memorial Centre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

 

 

 

See more here:

 

http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/wisconsin/milwaukee/saarinen/memorial3.html

 

and here:

 

http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/index/saarinen/saarinenindex.html (generally about Saarinen)

 

Finally, I don't know whether you have heard of British photographer Martin Parr, who is famous for his subtle, ironic and funny portryals of life and social classes mainly in Britian, and abroad too.  He has done some renouned projects, including The Last Resort - pictures of extremely depressing British seaside resorts, and their visitros, The Cost of Living a photographic expose into the middle class life, and amongst other things he has taken photos of British food, interiors,(Think of England) tourists abroad, people using their mobile phones, bored couples etc.  His photos can be purchased in books or prints, or they can all be viewed (watermarked) on his agency's site (Magnum Photos):

 

http://www.magnumphotos.com/c/htm/TreePf_MAG.aspx?Stat=Photographers_Portfolio&E=29YL53UHBZX

 

He has often captured 60s interiors and brutalistic architecture.

 

 

 

From Bored Couples

 

 

From The Last Resort:

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry to have veered off topic so much

 

 

 

[Bluthmania 7]

^Those are pretty funky!

I tried to post a picture of my highschool, but for some reason the photo won't actually appear on the school's website. So I'll just link you instead:

 

http://home.merlin.mb.ca/~mbarbour/  (hopefully it'll work for you folks)

 

It was designed by Etienne Gaboury and construction finished in 1968. Personally I find it to be in the top five 'ugliest buildings evAr' list. Mind you, that negative disposition might be the result of the four years that I have been going to that school. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I beg anyone out their who likes this building to hear me out. The central hallway (the one with the three windows, if you can see it) leaks every spring that I've been there. The gym, the biggest bump on the roofline, is cold and drafty and also leaks regularily. None of the hallways, the aforementioned one notwithstanding, have windows. None of the basement rooms have windows. The cafeteria has no windows (hell, it's right in the middle of the school, underground!) The skylights in the classrooms (those weird angular bumps) are about 93.8% useless. They rarely let in any light. The main lobby is a huge, off-white concrete cave with two balconies (which, humourosly enough, are off-limits to the students). Even with ten people talking, the room echoes like crazy. During dances the lobby, which is used as a lounge area, is like the THX commercial. Except there is no rising noise, it's always in a state of bedlam. The offices are downstairs (?!?!?) and are the most comfortable rooms in the school. Yes, the OFFICE is the most comfortable room in the school. And to top it off there are strange coloured circles and abstract shapes painted on the walls at regular intervals. Big, fourteen foot circles in orange, blue, and brown dot the halls and the gym. The only normal area in the school is the library, and it's cluttered due to the fact that the architects apparently thought that computer would someday be smaller. I'd be hardpressed to find anything attractive about this buildings. Even the library, which I said was the most normal room, is either too hot or too cold.

 

I don't know if it qualifies as brutalist, but there certainly is enough fireproof wood and concrete to suggest so. If I had to compare this to anything I would compare it to Antoine Predock, although that's pretty much an insult to him. In a sense, MBCI is a hidden gem. In another sense, it's a torturous hell which I'm nearly free off (senior year.)

[p2h5 3]

The Brasilian government's building in 60s-purpose-built-city Brasilia is something of a Brutalist monument:

 

 

 

 

In fact much of the city seems to be:

 

 

 

Please note the maximum image size is 800 x 600 - MM

 

^ How surreal do those blocks look?

[louisville327 0]

Brasilia is truly a 60s fantasy world.

On another note, I skimmed through the thread again and I don't think anyone mentioned Lincoln Center in NYC, specifically the Julliard School building:





Quite Brutal indeed.

[p2h5 3]

That sure is Brutalisim.  I couldn't think of any other examples in NYC, other than the MetLife tower in a way, but then I remembered that Marriott Marquis:

 

 

 

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It is literally a concrete slab, with less than 2lbs of steel per square foot.

 

I love Brutalism, sorry to have returned and rather hijacked this thread.

 

 

 

[Glenni 1,444]

it's sad to see this thread completely die,so i decided to try giving life back to it, i found some quite cool buildings in my hometown , Haugesund which may be brutalist

Here's Rossabø Kirke built in 1972

some of the interior:

Vardafjell highschool ...well some of it...

[lrfox 2]

Agreed, Glenni... In my area the most famous brutalist building is the boston city hall, but i havn't searched this thread and i'm sure it's already posted, so i'll just say google it if you're interested... another is the Fall River city hall below...







And.. the few i could find of UMass Dartmouth Campus.... the center of campus is ENTIRELY Brutalist.

[Glenni 1,444]

hm,yes that looks very brutalist indeed.

[____----____ 37]

all the pics on this page are tight

[Odainsaker 2,134]

You might never guess where this building is:

It's the Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana‘ole Federal Building and United States Courthouse in, of all places, Honolulu, Hawaii.  Built in 1977, this the central seat for the U.S. Federal Government in the state of Hawaii, housing numerous federal court and congressional local offices as well as our favorite alphabet-soup agencies such as the VA, IRS, FBI, and CIA.  We can see all the standard elements of Brutalism...cylinder turrets, rough concrete, blockish mega-massing, slit window bands, and an overall fortress feel.  This could be anywhere, as it doesn't say "Hawaii."

Here is something a little more friendly:

The is the Hawaii Imin Conference Center, originally Thomas Jefferson Hall, and centerpiece of the East-West Center at the University of Hawai'i campus at Manoa in Honolulu.  The East-West Center's mission to promote international education between the nations of Pacific Asia and the western hemisphere.  I. M. Pei's building from 1962 blends just a bit of Asian motifs with the International style, the rear of which is framed in a lush Japanese garden by landscape architect Kenzo Ogata.  Very picturesque...even the overhanging roof with the I-beam cantilevers look reminiscent of wooden rafters from traditional Asian architecture.  To bad the massive concrete arches are typically showing their unpristine weathering.

The front is a little less idyllic, but still has a relatively humane scale, in this nice photo by drdrewhonolulu over at Flickr.  The traditional Shishi lion-dog guardians are a cute touch.

Honolulu, like much of the booming Pacific Rim trade centers, went from a quite low-rise city in the 1950s to a bustling mass of modern skyscrapers by the and 1960s and 1970s.  Sure enough, that was the era when Brutalism was globally popular.

Above we have Honolulu's Financial Plaza of the Pacific, a complex comprising three separate buildings that together made this the largest commercial condominium in the U.S. when finished in 1968.  This is the solid home of the venerable Bank of Hawai'i.  Fortunately, the plaza is not as overly scaleless are most Brutalist plazas tend to be, though you will note that despite the always mild and comfortable climate, the plaza in this picture is still deserted.  At least they gave us shade trees, but if it weren't for the palm tree in the corner, I might think this was in Britain.  So this is where all my money was stashed!

Financial institutions love this sort of heavy architecture as it suggests power and permance.  Here is the Hawaii National Bank in bold block 1989 late-Brutalism:

I suppose it's interesting in a blockish lego way, and at least it fronts the street edge, but let me digress and show a much friendlier Honolulu commercial landmark:

Just behind the bulk of the Financial Plaza of the Pacific mega-block is the charming Alexander & Baldwin Building, a wonderful historic 1929 landmark by local architects C. W. Dickey and Hart Wood that was the grand home office of the one of the local big sugar plantation firms.  One might wonder at the hipped tile roof and terra-cotta that suggest Spanish origins, let alone all the mosiacs and murals blending Asian and Hawaiian decorative motifs.  The shady upper terrace, protective overhanging roof, and operable windows are all in keeping with the local climate, but I must admit I really like it because of all the old palm trees that almost now camouflages the whole building.  Definitely not Britain!

[Kokopelli 0]

Odainsaker: thanks for the photo tour of modern Honolulu. My last rememberance is from Hawaii Five-O back in the 1960s. "book'em Danno" (I gues I'm showing my age)

[steven87gill 0]

I'm from stubbington in fareham and has anyone noticed all the work they're doing in the shopping centre near BHS they've already pulled down the multi story down. Looks weird seeing just sky there, i've seen what they're gonna put there and i like it,any thoughts? here's some pics http://www.farehamshopping.com/news/assets/Fareham_Shopping_Centre.pdf btw anyone know if the old car park had floors added on to it cause it looked different from floor 4 upwards.

[hamsterTK 93]

this one is borderline brutalist, perhaps modern instead:

a very erect florida state capitol tower in tallahasee

the layout of the whole complex is a a very fitting design for the capitol of a state known as america's penis

[Tim Evans 0]

On 23/6/2005 at 11:01 AM, Glenni said:

I was wondering wich style this building is.it's From My hometown Haugesund(30k),Norway it is  8 floors, and i am thinking of batting it.

So wich style is it?

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//bytur-april-5-hgt.jpg align=baseline>

 

[Tim Evans 0]

The photograph does not show the student residences at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.  Its some other brutalist creation somewhere else in the UK.  The UEA residences were designed in the early 60s by Denys Lasdun and are universally admired.  I was a student there in the 70s and adored the ziggurat shape of the buildings .  It was both beautiful and futuristic and has stood the test of time.  Nothing brutal about it at all. Compare, though, with Waveney Terrace (since demolished ) built later on and on the cheap:

  

[CT14 2,486]

Le Corbusier loved grain elevators. I went hunting on the satellites and struck gold in Enid:

Bonus with steam and cabooses!