What's your favourite bit of brutalist architecture?

[Bonefish Blues]

ahh, the Tricorn!
As a kid, growing upon the Isle of Wight, a 'treat' would be to head to Portsmouth for a day of shopping. Bacon butty at the market in the Tricorn to start the day off. What a hideous monstrosity it was!
I read somewhere about the architect, Rodney Gordon, who was alway very proud of his creations. Some detail here.
Have to say, on the whole, I am with Price Charles - hideous carbuncle, I think he called that one!

"Monstrous carbuncle..." and that was referring to the National Gallery extension IIRC.

...and who went on to build Poundbury - which tbf has many fine ideas (and which commands a premium because people want to live there), but which is a pastiche.

 

[Archie_tect]

"Monstrous carbuncle..." and that was referring to the National Gallery extension IIRC.

...and who went on to build Poundbury - which tbf has many fine ideas (and which commands a premium because people want to live there), but which is a pastiche.

Don't get me started... I'm surprised they don't employ actors wearing smocks with straws in their mouths to herd trained sheep and cows to wend their way down the residential streets to maintain that authentic village atmosphere.

 

[Fab Foodie]

University of East Anglia, we visited with my daughter earlier this year.

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Beautiful, but is it a Brutalist building?

 

[Fab Foodie]

Birmingham Central Library. It looked like something out of Thunderbirds. It's been knocked down now.


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Shame - like that...

 

[MichaelW2]

UEA, twinned with UniofEssex! Both built early 60s.
That is a stunning accommodation block.

The UEA Ziggarauts look good but have too many external surfaces to be warm and cosy in a cold winter. Brutalism works best when you dont have to live in it.

 

[MichaelW2]

Beautiful, but is it a Brutalist building?

Yes, it is regarded by Brutalist architechts as one of the finer examples of the Brutalist cannon.

 

[All uphill]

A little bit of brutalist, maybe, in Taunton.
This college building has recently been cleaned up. It's a lovely building to be in, full of light and strong shapes.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

A little bit of brutalist, maybe, in Taunton.
This college building has recently been cleaned up. It's a lovely building to be in, full of light and strong shapes.

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That'll need to come down then

 

[Grant Fondo]

Beautiful, but is it a Brutalist building?

I would say so, although some are more brutal than others.
The origins are interesting, The Bauhaus played a big part but split into various modernist styles. Marcel Breuer studied there in the early 1920's, for me he is the main brutalist, widely copied but with variable results as we have all seen! His buildings are really brutal but you don't feel as depressed visiting them, unlike with some of the crap stuff here.

 

[Beebo]

I played Rugby for Kent Uni so visited most of the universities in the south on away game trips. Lots of the 1960s unis were quite brutal in design.
Here is the Kent library building. Not that I spent much time in there.

 

[Archie_tect]

1960s detailing pushed the boundaries of what was possible... sadly some were abominable and none had any regard for thermal insulation and residents' long term comfort- so looking retrospectively few've matured well without significant intervention. The South Bank and the Barbican still look crisp but then anything should if you were to spend that much money making and maintaining it.

 

[straas]

Bristol's Arts and Social Sciences (or ASS library)

Felt like revising in a space station.

 

[mikeIow]

"Monstrous carbuncle..." and that was referring to the National Gallery extension IIRC.

...and who went on to build Poundbury - which tbf has many fine ideas (and which commands a premium because people want to live there), but which is a pastiche.

Maybe you're right.....
I read here he did refer to it as "a mildewed lump of elephant droppings".....

It is curious. When we visited Uni of Essex, it initially felt grotesque, a concrete apology for buildings....but over the brief time (for us, on visits!), I grew to really like it.
The Tricorn was ALWAYS ugly. I faintly recall it had an "army surplus" store (the kind of place a 10-15 year old would be excited to look around!) near the market....a perfect location. That store moved uptown a few years later.
The trouble with concrete is that no-one thinks what it will look like after a wet winter.....

 

[Fab Foodie]

I always liked this building in Kaliningrad when I used to travel there regularly, long abandoned as it started collapsing soon after it was occupied:

...and then there's Aylesbury....

If you put this Aylesbury council block in Kaliningrad, nobody would notice...they should be twinned....

 

[Archie_tect]

Le Corbusier's Unites inspired some awful LA copies which never captured the spirit of the originals, but then the sharp Mediterranean light made them look crisp in a way that the damp gloom of Croydon on a Tuesday could never match.