![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Extension of graffiti artists’ canvas to large public buildings is a surrender to vandalism. Skateboarders, graffiti artists and parkour practitioners have all used Brutalism’s concrete surfaces in innovative ways.ĭALRYMPLE: To regard the urban fabric as properly an extended playground is to infantilise the population. Sincerity of intentions is not a virtue irrespective of what those intentions are, and those of the inspirer and founder of brutalism were evil, as the slightest acquaintance with his writings will convince anyone of minimal decency.īARBARIAN: Beyond their architectural function, brutalist buildings serve other uses. For such apologists for brutalism, architecture is a matter of the application of an abstract principle alone, and they see the results through the lenses of their abstraction, which they cherish as others cherish their pet.īARBARIAN : Unrefined concrete was an honest expression of intentions, while plain forms and exposed structures were similarly sincere.ĭALRYMPLE: This is like saying that the Gulag was an honest expression of Stalin’s intentions. A human being would be as out of place in such a picture, and a fortiori in such a building, as he would be in a textbook of Euclidean geometry, and would be as welcome as a termite in a wooden floor. When defenders of brutalism illustrate their articles with supposed masterpieces, it is hardly a coincidence that they do so with pictures of buildings devoid of human beings. It’s a simple, massive and timeless base upon which one can feel safe, it’s reassuring.ĭALRYMPLE: The idea that brute concrete could create any kind of security other than unease or fear is laughable. In troubled times where societal divides are stronger than ever around the globe and in a world where instantaneous rhymes with tenuous, brutalism offers a grounded style. The great mass of the population rightly detests brutalism.īRUTE : The newly-gained attractivity is growing by the day. It is like trying to persuade someone that genocide is wrong who does not apprehend it at once. As James Curl pointed out in debate with an apologist for brutalism, if you do not apprehend the horrors of brutalism at once, there is little that anyone can say. Of course, there is no accounting for taste. No invading barbarians could have done more damage to towns and cities. The architects who practised brutalism were brutes. Detail of Balfron Tower (Ernő Goldfinger, 1965-67)ĭALRYMPLE: It has the ring of guilty people who protest their innocence too much, who know that they have been complicit in many crimes but hope that by noisy protestation they can drown out their conscience and befuddle the judgment of others. ![]()
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