Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by WalterBright 658 days ago
They call it "Brutalism" for a reason. Soviet buildings often look like flak towers.
2 comments

Brutalism - béton brut ("raw concrete") and art brut ("raw art") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture

Though the common modern understanding of it does lend itself to 'brute'. I think one of the real issues was the post WWII era of 1950s to 1980s was a time of focus on low cost construction with an overconfidence in the forgiving nature of concrete combined with a fair amount of corruption in the factory supplied components - at least in the UK which I'm more familiar with.

It can be done well, and I point to the Barbican in London as an example. With better construction techniques it can last a lot longer with less maintenance cost.

>Though the common modern understanding of it does lend itself to 'brute'.

English brute and French brut (raw) both seem to come from the Latin brutus.

> It can be done well, and I point to the Barbican in London as an example.

The brutalist-does-not-mean-ugly architecture I usually point to is the Washington Metro.

> I point to the Barbican in London

https://www.barbican.org.uk/our-story/architecture/our-build...

To me, this looks more like an East Berlin apartment building for the Communist Party elites. Not as ugly as the workers' buildings, but that's not saying much.

Yes, but that is not the reason:

> Brutalism is an architectural style of the 20th century that mainly uses concrete as a building material. The term "brutalism" comes from the French expression "béton brut", which means "raw concrete".

https://industrialkonzept.com/blogs/magazine/beton-brut-berl...

Looking like a prison, flak tower, or bomb shelter is certainly brutal!
Yes, but I mean the reason it's called "brutalism" isn't because the buildings look "brutal".