Along with Marcel Breuer's defiant
building that once housed the Whitney
on Madison Avenue in New York and was
sanctioned by the Metropolitan Museum
of Art as the Met Breuer are preservation
efforts across the pond. In northern
England's Sheffield, for example, a large
part of Park Hill has been transformed
into chic middle-class housing, while
the Hayward Gallery in London has
been subtly renovated. Meanwhile,
digital platforms like Instagram have
fostered a more favorable appraisal of
the long reviled sle, while Phaidon's
new tome highlights nearly 900 Brutalist
buildings in more than 100 countries. "I think it's safe to say
that there has never been an architectural movement that
has so captured the public's imagination—past and present,"
says McLeod. "e visual drama and emotional power of
this bold, proud, 'take-no-prisoners' sle of architecture,
not to mention the acres of raw concrete in all of its limitless
geometric permutations has, over the last decade, taken the
world by storm." All are fundamentally redefining Brutalism
in a new age.
McLeod makes clear that, in or out of fashion, Brutalism has
never stopped; indeed, it is alive and well. "Today, Brutalist
architecture is evident in the work of Steven Holl, Herzog
& de Meuron, OMA, Graon Architects and Zaha Hadid,"
she says of just some of the architects who come from a
generation that followed the vanguard Brutalists. "And now,
the current generation of young architects, including Pezo von
Elrichshausen and Elemental, both from Chile, and Ensamble
Studio from Spain, among many others, are contributing their
own Brutalist masterpieces to the landscapes and ciscapes of
the [21st] century."
Aside from the derelict and demolished are Brutalist buildings
with preservation or some form of protective orders. ese
range from a town hall and a post office to a number of
churches and major cultural institutions. ere are Lecture
halls, a cinema, a ski resort and at least one water tower among
many other structures. e sheer array of these buildings,
along with the digital revisions of the vernacular, speaks to the
broader impact of Brutalism, then and now. What this says is
largely up to the viewer. But as surely as Brutalism has played a
role in the past, helping build, then rebuild, the modern world,
it is a factor in the present.
12.7.2018 | DIGS.NET 17
