Descended fromModernism, brutalism is said to be a reaction against thenostalgia of architecture in the 1940s.[10] Derived from the Swedish wordnybrutalism, the term "new brutalism" was first used by British architectsAlison and Peter Smithson for their pioneering approach to design.[8][11][12] The style was further popularised in a 1955 essay by architectural criticReyner Banham, who also associated the movement with the French phrasesbéton brut ("raw concrete") andart brut ("raw art").[13][14] The style, as developed by architects such as the Smithsons, Hungarian-bornErnő Goldfinger, and the British firmChamberlin, Powell & Bon, was partly foreshadowed by the modernist work of other architects such as French-SwissLe Corbusier, Estonian-AmericanLouis Kahn, German-American LudwigMies van der Rohe, and FinnishAlvar Aalto.[7][15]
In the United Kingdom, brutalism was featured in the design of utilitarian, low-costsocial housing influenced bysocialist principles and soon spread to other regions around the world, while being echoed by similar styles like inEastern Europe.[16][6][7][17] Brutalist designs became most commonly used in the design of institutional buildings, such as provincial legislatures, public works projects,universities,libraries,courts, andcity halls. The popularity of the movement began to decline in the late 1970s, with some associating the style withurban decay andtotalitarianism.[7] Brutalism's popularity in socialist and communist nations owed to traditional styles being associated with thebourgeoisie, whereas concrete emphasized equality.[18]
Brutalism has been polarising historically; specific buildings, as well as the movement as a whole, have drawn a range of criticism (often being described as "cold"). There are often public-led campaigns to demolish brutalist buildings. Some people are favourable to the style, and in the United Kingdom some buildings have been preserved.
Villa Göth (1950) in Kåbo,Uppsala, Sweden. "New Brutalism" was used for the first time to describe this house.
The termnybrutalism (new brutalism)[19] was coined by the Swedish architectHans Asplund to describeVilla Göth, a modern brick home inUppsala, designed in January 1950[11] by his contemporaries Bengt Edman and Lennart Holm.[12] Showcasing the 'as found' design approach that would later be at the core of brutalism, the house displays visibleI-beams over windows, exposed brick inside and out, and poured concrete in several rooms where thetongue-and-groove pattern of the boards used to build the forms can be seen.[20][13] The term was picked up in the summer of 1950 by a group of visiting English architects, includingMichael Ventris, Oliver Cox, and Graeme Shankland, where it apparently "spread like wildfire, and [was] subsequently adopted by a certain faction of young British architects".[19][21][12]
The first published usage of the phrase "new brutalism" occurred in 1953, when Alison Smithson used it to describe a plan for their unbuiltSoho house which appeared in the November issue ofArchitectural Design.[13][9] She further stated: "It is our intention in this building to have the structure exposed entirely, without interior finishes wherever practicable."[12][13] The Smithsons'Hunstanton School completed in 1954 inNorfolk, and the Sugden House completed in 1955 inWatford, represent the earliest examples of new brutalism in the United Kingdom.[4] Hunstanton school, likely inspired byMies van der Rohe's 1946 Alumni Memorial Hall at theIllinois Institute of Technology inChicago, United States, is notable as the first completed building in the world to carry the title of "new brutalist" by its architects.[22][23] At the time, it was described as "the most truly modern building in England".[24]
The term gained increasingly wider recognition when British architectural historianReyner Banham used it to identify both an ethic and aesthetic style, in his 1955 essayThe New Brutalism. In the essay, Banham described Hunstanton and the Soho house as the "reference by which The New Brutalism in architecture may be defined."[13] Reyner Banham also associated the term "new brutalism" withart brut andbéton brut, meaning "raw concrete" in French, for the first time.[19][25][26] The best-knownbéton brut architecture is the proto-brutalist work of the Swiss-French architectLe Corbusier, in particular his 1952Unité d'habitation inMarseille, France; the 1951–1961Chandigarh Capitol Complex in India; and the 1955 church ofNotre Dame du Haut inRonchamp, France.
Banham further expanded his thoughts in the 1966 book,The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic?, to characterise a somewhat recently established cluster of architectural approaches, particularly in Europe.[27] In the book, Banham says that Le Corbusier's concrete work was a source of inspiration and helped popularise the movement, suggesting "if there is one single verbal formula that has made the concept of Brutalism admissible in most of the world's Western languages, it is that Le Corbusier himself described that concrete work as 'béton-brut'".[28] He further states that "the words 'The New Brutalism' were already circulating, and had acquired some depth of meaning through things said and done, over and above the widely recognised connection withbéton brut. The phrase still 'belonged' to the Smithsons, however, and it was their activities above all others that were giving distinctive qualities to the concept of Brutalism."[29]
Student dormitory (1971) byGeorgi Konstantinovski inSkopje, North Macedonia"TV buildings" named for the concrete window frames that resemble TV screens (Belgrade, Serbia)
New brutalism is not only an architectural style; it is also a philosophical approach to architectural design, a striving to create simple, honest, and functional buildings that accommodate their purpose, inhabitants, and location.[30][31] Stylistically, brutalism is a strict, modernistic design language that has been said to be a reaction to the architecture of the 1940s, much of which was characterised by a retrospective nostalgia.[32]Peter Smithson believed that the core of brutalism was a reverence for materials, expressed honestly, stating "Brutalism is not concerned with the material as such but rather the quality of material",[33] and "the seeing of materials for what they were: the woodness of the wood; the sandiness of sand."[34] Architect John Voelcker explained that the "new brutalism" in architecture "cannot be understood through stylistic analysis, although some day a comprehensible style might emerge",[35] supporting the Smithsons' description of the movement as "an ethic, not an aesthetic".[36] Reyner Banham felt the phrase "the new brutalism" existed as both an attitude toward design as well as a descriptive label for the architecture itself and that it "eludes precise description, while remaining a living force". He attempted to codify the movement in systematic language, insisting that a brutalist structure must satisfy the following terms, "1, Formal legibility of plan; 2, clear exhibition of structure, and 3, valuation of materials for their inherent qualities 'as found'."[13] Also important was the aesthetic "image", or "coherence of the building as a visual entity".[13]
Brutalist buildings are usually constructed with reoccurring modular elements representing specific functional zones, distinctly articulated and grouped together into a unified whole. There is often an emphasis on graphic expressions in the external elevations and in the whole-sitearchitectural plan in regard to the main functions and people-flows of the buildings.[37] Buildings may use materials such as concrete, brick, glass, steel, timber, rough-hewn stone, andgabions among others.[8] However, due to its low cost, raw concrete is often used and left to reveal the basic nature of its construction with rough surfaces featuring wood "shuttering" produced when the forms were castin situ.[8] Examples are frequently massive in character (even when not large) and challenge traditional notions of what a building should look like with focus given to interior spaces as much as exterior.[13][8]
A common theme in brutalist designs is the exposure of the building's inner-workings—ranging from their structure and services to their human use—in the exterior of the building. In theBoston City Hall, designed in 1962, the strikingly different and projected portions of the building indicate the special nature of the rooms behind those walls, such as the mayor's office or the city council chambers. From another perspective, the design of theHunstanton School included placing the facility's water tank, normally a hidden service feature, in a prominent, visible tower. Rather than being hidden in the walls, Hunstanton's water and electric utilities were delivered via readily visible pipes and conduits.[13]
Brutalism as an architectural philosophy was often associated with asocialistutopian ideology, which tended to be supported by its designers, especially byAlison and Peter Smithson, near the height of the style. Indeed, their work sought to emphasize functionality and to connect architecture with what they viewed as the realities of modern life.[30] Among their early contributions were "streets in the sky" in which traffic and pedestrian circulation were rigorously separated, another theme popular in the 1960s.[37] This style had a strong position in the architecture of Europeancommunist countries from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s (Bulgaria,Czechoslovakia,East Germany,USSR,Yugoslavia).[38] In Czechoslovakia, Brutalism was presented as an attempt to create a "national" but also "modern socialist" architectural style. Such prefabricated socialist era buildings are calledpanelaky.
A sub-genre of brutalism is "brick brutalism" or "brickalism", where the dominant structural material is brick rather than concrete. Examples range from the Smithson's house in Soho (1952) toColin St John Wilson'sBritish Library (1982–98).[39][40][41]
Evans Woollen III is credited for introducing the Brutalist and Modernist architecture styles toIndianapolis, Indiana.[42]Walter Netsch is known for his brutalist academic buildings.Marcel Breuer was known for his "soft" approach to the style, often using curves rather than corners. InAtlanta, Georgia, the architectural style was introduced to Buckhead's affluentPeachtree Road with the Ted Levy-designed Plaza Towers andPark Place on Peachtree condominiums. Architectural historianWilliam Jordy said that althoughLouis Kahn was "[o]pposed to what he regarded as the muscular posturing of most Brutalism", some of his work "was surely informed by some of the same ideas that came to momentary focus in the brutalist position".[43]
The city of Winnipeg is noted for significant contributions to brutalist archiecture in Canada, including the Winnipeg Civic Centre (City Hall and Administrative Building) (1962-1963, Green Blankstein Russell)[45] as well as theUniversity of Manitoba Students' Union Building (1966–69) andRoyal Manitoba Theatre Centre (1969-70), both by Waisman Ross Blankstein Coop Gillmor Hanna (now Number Ten Architectural Group).[46]
InSerbia, Božidar Janković was a representative of the so-called "Belgrade School of residence", identifiable by its functionalist relations on the basis of the flat[48] and elaborated in detail the architecture.Mihajlo Mitrović designed theWestern City Gate, also known as the Genex Tower, a 36-storeyskyscraper inBelgrade, Serbia, in 1977.[49] It is formed by two towers connected with a two-storey bridge andrevolving restaurant at the top. It is 117 m (384 ft) tall[50] (with restaurant 135–140 m (443–459 ft)) and is the second-tallest high-rise in Belgrade afterUšće Tower. The building was designed in the brutalist style with some elements ofstructuralism andconstructivism. It is considered a prime representative of the brutalist architecture in Serbia and one of the best of its style built in the 1960s and the 1970s in the world. The treatment of the form and details is slightly associating the building withpostmodernism and is today one of the rare surviving representatives of this style's early period in Serbia. The artistic expression of the gate marked an entire era in Serbian architecture.[50]
InVietnam, brutalist architecture is particularly popular among old public buildings and has been associated with thebao cấp era (lit.: subsidising), the period during which the country followedSoviet-type economic planning. ManySoviet architects, most notablyGarol Isakovich, were sent to Vietnam during that time to help train new architects and played an influential role in shaping the country's architectural styles for decades.[51] Isakovich himself also designed some of the most notable brutalist buildings in Vietnam, including theVietnam-Soviet Friendship Palace of Culture and Labour (1985).[52] In his later years, Isakovich, who was awarded theHero of Labor by the Vietnamese government in 1976, is said to have deviated from the brutalist style and adopted Vietnamese traditional styles in his design, which has been referred to by some Vietnamese architects asChủ nghĩa hiện đại địa phương (lit.: localmodernism) andhậu hiện đại (postmodernism).[51] In the formerSouth Vietnam,Ngô Viết Thụ, the first Asian architect to become an Honorary Fellow of theAmerican Institute of Architects, designed theIndependence Palace (1966), which has been said to include brutalist elements.[53][54][55]
The building of new universities in the UK in the 1960s led to opportunities for brutalist architects. The first to be built was theUniversity of Sussex, designed byBasil Spence, with the Grade I listed Falmer House (1960–62) as its centerpiece. The building has been described as a "meeting of Arts and Crafts with modernism", with features such as hand-made bricks that contrast with the pre-fabricated construction of other 1960s campuses, and colonnades of bare, board-marked concrete arches on brick piers inspired by the Colosseum.[66] It is also considered one of the "key Brutalist buildings" by theRoyal Institute of British Architects.[67][68] It has, in a reversal of the usual situation for brutalist architecture, received popular acclaim while being less liked by professional critics and is sometimes described aspicturesque rather than brutalist.[69]Denys Lasdun's work at theUniversity of East Anglia, including six linked halls of residence in Norfolk Terrace and four linked halls of residence in Suffolk Terrace (commonly referred to as the 'ziggurats') and the library and 'teaching wall' between them, is considered one of the finest examples of a 1960s brutalist university campus.[19][70] The ziggurats were closed in 2023 as part of thereinforced autoclaved aerated concrete crisis, with no date set for their refurbishment as of February 2025[update].[71][72] Another notable example is theCentral Hall of theUniversity of York (1966–68) with itssurrounding colleges (1963–65) designed byStirrat Johnson-Marshall andAndrew Derbyshire of Robert Matthew, Johnson-Marshall & Partners. The reinforced concrete of the Central Hall gives a contrast to the colleges, which were the first university buildings built using theCLASP prefabricated system originally developed for school buildings. The same architectural practice would go on to build the universities ofBath,Stirling andUlster.[73] The Grade II listed lecture block atBrunel University (John Heywood ofRichard Sheppard, Robson and Partners; 1965–68) was used as a location inStanley Kubrick's 1971 filmA Clockwork Orange.[74] The central campus complex of theUniversity of Essex (1964) was designed by Kenneth Capon of the Architects' Co-Partnership, with complementary concrete extensions by Patel Taylor matching the brutalist aesthetic in 2015.[75]
A notable pairing of brutalist campus buildings is found atDurham University, withOve Arup's Grade I-listedKingsgate Bridge (1963), one of only six post-1961 buildings to have been listed as Grade I by 2017,[76][77] and the Grade II-listedDunelm House (Richard Raines of the Architects' Co-Partnership with Michael Powers as the partner-in-charge; 1964–66), described in its listing as "the foremost students' union building of the post-war era in England" but only saved from demolition in 2021 following a five-year campaign by theTwentieth Century Society.[78][79][80][81] Dunelm House was designed to reflect thevernacular architecture of the city in the way its multiple levels cascade down the river bank, breaking up the bulk of the building.[57][82][83][84] This leadPevsner to describe it as "Brutal by tradition but not brutal to the landscape"[85] and to it being praised as a brutalist building that works well in its setting even by opponents of the style.[86]
One of the most famous brutalist buildings in the United States isGeisel Library at theUniversity of California, San Diego.[94][95] Designed byWilliam Pereira and built 1969–70, it is said to "occup[y] a fascinating nexus between brutalism and futurism" but was originally intended as a modernist building in steel and glass before cost considerations meant the structural elements were redesigned in concrete and moved to the outside of the building.[96]Evans Woollen III's brutalistClowes Memorial Hall, a performing arts facility that opened in 1963 on the campus ofButler University inIndianapolis, was praised for its bold and dramatic design.[97] TheUniversity of Minnesota's West Bank campus features theRarig Center, a performing arts venue by Ralph Rapson from 1971 that has been called "the best example in the Twin Cities of the style called Brutalism".[98]Faner Hall atSouthern Illinois University Carbondale has long been controversial for its use of brutalism and has been considered an eyesore on campus,[99] deemed to have a "facade only a mother could love" by the university itself.[100]
A 2014 article inThe Economist noted its unpopularity with the public, observing that a campaign to demolish a building will usually be directed against a brutalist one.[113] According toSimon Jenkins, "Few styles in history can have been met with so many pleas from its users to see it destroyed."[114] In 2005, the British TV programmeDemolition ran a public vote to select twelve buildings that ought to be demolished, and eight of those selected were brutalist buildings.[114]
One argument is that this criticism exists in part because concrete façades do not age well in damp, cloudymaritime climates such as those of northwestern Europe andNew England. In these climates, the concrete becomes streaked with water stains and sometimes withmoss andlichen, and rust stains from thesteel reinforcing bars.[115]
Critics of the style find it unappealing due to its "cold" appearance, projecting an atmosphere oftotalitarianism, as well as the association of the buildings withurban decay due to materials weathering poorly in certain climates and the surfaces being prone to vandalism by graffiti. Despite this, the style is appreciated by others, and preservation efforts are taking place in the United Kingdom.[26][116]
After two unsuccessful proposals to demolishPreston bus station (1969, Lancashire, UK), it gainedGrade II listed building status in September 2013.
Although the original brutalist movement was largely over by the late 1970s and early 1980s, having largely given way tostructural expressionism anddeconstructivism, it has experienced a resurgence of interest since 2015 with the publication of a variety of guides and books, includingBrutal London (Zupagrafika, 2015),Brutalist London Map (2015),This Brutal World (2016),SOS Brutalism: A Global Survey (2017), and the lavishAtlas of Brutalist Architecture (Phaidon, 2018). This resurgence of interest has been accompanied by new construction in the brutalist style, termedneobrutalism.[117]
Neobrutalist buildings have includedWang Shu'sNingbo Museum, where traces of the bamboo framework are visible on the monumental concrete, referred to in his 2012Pritzker Prize citation as "an urban icon". In general, however, neobrutalist buildings tend to be commissioned by the private sector, such as the campus of the privateUniversity of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) in Peru, designed byYvonne Farrell andShelley McNamara and referenced in the citation for their 2020 Pritzker Prize.[118] They may also use more ecologically friendly materials, such as recycled bricks or timber construction, rather than concrete, while maintaining the fundamental concept of exposing the materials and structural elements, an approach taken at the Colegio Reggio in Madrid.[117]
Many of the defining aspects of the style have been softened in newer buildings, with concrete façades often beingsandblasted to create a stone-like surface, covered instucco, or composed of patterned, precast elements. These elements are also found in renovations of older brutalist buildings, such as the redevelopment ofSheffield's Park Hill. However, board-marked concrete in the brutalist tradition is still used in some developments, such as the neobrutalist Silberrad Student Centre and library extension at the University of Essex, designed to be sympathetic to the existing 1960s brutalist campus buildings and taking "the opportunity to use in-situ brutalist concrete as a sensitive contextual material".[119][120]
The neobrutalist Silberrad Student Centre (2015) at the University of Essex
^McClelland, Michael, and Graeme Stewart, "Concrete Toronto: A Guide to Concrete Architecture from the Fifties to the Seventies, Coach House Books, 2007, p. 12.
^Trounstine, Philip J. (9 May 1976). "Evans Woollen".[Indianapolis] Star Magazine. Indianapolis, Indiana: 18. See also:"Prominent local architect Woollen Dies at 88".Indianapolis Business Journal. Indianapolis. 19 May 2016. Retrieved18 December 2017.
^Megan Fernandez (June 2010)."The Pillar: Evans Woollen".Indianapolis Monthly. Indianapolis, Indiana: 68. Retrieved18 December 2017. See also:Philip J. Trounstine (9 May 1976). "Evans Woollen: Struggles of a 'Good Architect'".[Indianapolis] Star Magazine. Indianapolis, Indiana: 23.
^Yalav-Heckeroth, Feride (1 February 2024)."Brutalism, bureaucracy and beauty: Why Turkey's capital city isn't 'gray'".CNN. Retrieved15 April 2025.And, between 1961 and 1980, the city obtained one of its most important university campuses, the Middle East Technical University, one of Turkey's key works of Brutalist architecture - the modernist style that uses exposed concrete or brick - designed by Behruz and Altuğ Çinici.
Monzo, Luigi: Plädoyer für herbe Schönheiten. Gastbeitrag im Rahmen der Austellung "SOS Brutalismus – Rettet die Betonmonster".Pforzheimer Zeitung, 27 February 2018, p. 6.(in German)
Anna Rita Emili,Pure and simple, the architecture of New Brutalism, Ed.Kappa Rome 2008
Anna Rita Emili,Architettura estrema, il Neobrutalismo alla prova della contemporaneità, Quodlibet, Macerata 2011
Anna Rita Emili,Il Brutalismo paulista, L'architettura brasiliana tra teoria e progetto, Manifesto Libri, Roma ISBN 978872859759, pp. 335
Silvia Groaz,New Brutalism. The Invention of a Style, EPFL Press, Lausanne, 2023, ISBN 978-2-88915-510-1
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