Brutalism

Brutalism is an architectural style of the 1950s and 1960s characterised by simple, massive, blocky forms and exposed, rough concrete construction. The name derives from the French phrase béton brut, raw concrete, popularised by the architect Le Corbusier. Brutalism is typified by bare surfaces of untreated concrete bearing the marks of wooden formwork, by monumentality, repeating modular elements and an emphatic honesty in displaying materials and structure. The style grew out of the postwar need for rapid and economical construction of housing, schools, universities and public buildings. The theoretical grounding of the New Brutalism was provided by the British architects Alison and Peter Smithson, and among its landmark examples are Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation in Marseille, the National Theatre building and the Barbican complex in London. Brutalism was often linked with ideas of social utopia and collective welfare. It was later criticised for its grimness and inhuman scale, and many buildings decayed or were demolished. Yet since the early twenty-first century interest in Brutalism has revived, and its legacy is being reassessed as an important chapter of modernist architecture.