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What's more interesting to me, is why HN is so attracted to Brutalism? Is it a sense of minimalist aesthetic, an expectation of structural integrity, the econom

What's more interesting to me, is why HN is so attracted to Brutalism? Is it a sense of minimalist aesthetic, an expectation of structural integrity, the economics of minimalism, a detachment from previous architectural genres, or perhaps an affinity for the writings of Ayn Rand (whose characters espouse the virtues of Brutalism, and whose book, "The Fountainhead" was about a brutalist architect). I spend a lot of time exploring and studying music in former Yugoslav countries, and while I find the Brutalism fascinating in it's relationship to Soviet/Yugoslav poverty & austerity, beauty is not a word I would ever use positively in the same sentence.

YorkshireSeason 8y ago
I can think of three main reasons for this. (A) It's a form or contrarianism, in that it's an negation of mainstream preference, hence unusual. Even better, this negation of mainstream preference isn't really threatening anybody, hence good way of attracting mainstream attention. (B) Brutalism is often associated with left-wing / communist large-scale social engineering, and the left reflexively celebrates anything done by the left. (Aside, the association of brutalism with the left is historically quite false, e.g. people like Le Corbusier didn't meet a dictator he didn't like.) So where brutalism is celebrated by somebody who's explicitly and self-consciously political, it's a Gramscian hegemonic strategy [1]. An example of such a writer is Owen Hatherley [2]. (C) Cities with a lot of brutalist architecture, prevalent in the former Soviet block, use it to market themselves are tourist destinations. This ties in with (A), for why would you go and visit a city unless it had something unusual to offer, something Instagrammable, something to talk about when you are back? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Hatherley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Hatherley
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  I think brutalism is more generally associated with authoritarianism, including use in modern government buildings. I think free people choose to incorporate aesthetics into their buildings where bureaucrats prefer utilitarian functional designs because they don't have to live with them or attempt to justify the value of aesthetics.
  - walrus01 8y ago
    FBI HQ , Boston city hall, are two good examples.
  - krapp 8y ago
    The aggressively dehumanizing aesthetic does seem to express the... brutality of the more fascistic interpretations of collectivism quite well. These buildings all seem to come from a dystopian future.
    - beaconstudios 8y ago
      the design reflects the mentality of the designer. Brutalism is totally utilitarian and reflects the perspective of occupant as unit on a spreadsheet. It's the ultimate expression of "you are a number, not a person".
- walrus01 8y ago
  If you look at how much a condo in Montreal's habitat 67 is selling for now, they're certainly not for the common "worker". North of $900k.
  - jhbadger 8y ago
    True. But that's because it's the only example of the style and people like it (even many people who generally dislike Brutalism think habitat 67 is nice). The original idea was that it was going to be a prototype for future housing projects but that never happened.
- expathacker 8y ago
  > (B) Brutalism is often associated with left-wing / communist large-scale social engineering, and the left reflexively celebrates anything done by the left. (Aside, the association of brutalism with the left is historically quite false, e.g. people like Le Corbusier didn't meet a dictator he didn't like.) So where brutalism is celebrated by somebody who's explicitly and self-consciously political, it's a Gramscian hegemonic strategy [1]. An example of such a writer is Owen Hatherley [2]. Huh, quite an interesting take. On the contrary, I associate an appreciation of brutalism with those who post staunch free-market capitalist comments. I have many taken architectural tours in Bucaresti, Plovdiv, Sofia, Skopje, Moldova, Tbilisi, Beograd, Kiev, and Moscow. Unanimously, the tour-guides presented these buildings with disdain for their aesthetics and association with authoritarianism. All of the tour-guides were definitely left/liberal-leaning, some to the point of dreadlocks and Che Guevara hats. (Thanks for the links, by the way, I had never heard of Own Hatherly before!).
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    > On the contrary, I associate an appreciation of brutalism with those who post staunch free-market capitalist comments. I find that surprising. I associate them with architectural symbols of neoliberalism, namely modernist architecture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_architecture). Libertarians, I associate with the weird branch of modernist architecture that builds everything out of glass and trees and matt white surfaces and everywhere looks like Dubai. Perhaps a subset of contemporary architecture? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_architecture)
  - pjc50 8y ago
    > disdain for their aesthetics and association with authoritarianism [under Communism] > Che Guevara hats There's some real semiotic collapse going on here. What does it mean to wear a Che Guevara hat? In the west you might see it alongside people trying to unironically revive the hammer and sickle. But there are plenty of people who lived in eastern Europe under Communism who would regard that symbol as just as symbolic of authoritarianism as the swastika.
  - 8y ago
aikah 8y ago
The following is strictly my opinion. Misplaced romanticism. AFAIK historically Americans didn't park their poor people or immigrant workers into these huge brutalist apartment complexes like in Europe, or if they did it is somehow a new phenomenon. And I can assure you it's the same in western Europe. Not a lot of people value that architectural style given what it represents: a lot of political and social failure that carries so much shame and embarrassment we are trying to remove any trace of it.
punchclockhero 8y ago
Bulgarian here, Randian types around here prefer interbellum modernist architecture to the full blown Brutalism. As for the more extreme postwar architecture, it feels quite homey to me. Although I like it best when it's subverted by the inhabitants, humans living and leaving their mark, think flowers growing in a concrete crack.
coldtea 8y ago
>What's more interesting to me, is why HN is so attracted to Brutalism? It's just a term that got into fame (from a brutalist web design trend and manifesto) recently (a few years ago), and as thus it's in our mid-term memories from our web surfing, so folks on HN periodically rediscover it and post links about it here. No special attraction to Brutalism.

YorkshireSeason 8y ago

I can think of three main reasons for this. (A) It's a form or contrarianism, in that it's an negation of mainstream preference, hence unusual. Even better, this negation of mainstream preference isn't really threatening anybody, hence good way of attracting mainstream attention. (B) Brutalism is often associated with left-wing / communist large-scale social engineering, and the left reflexively celebrates anything done by the left. (Aside, the association of brutalism with the left is historically quite false, e.g. people like Le Corbusier didn't meet a dictator he didn't like.) So where brutalism is celebrated by somebody who's explicitly and self-consciously political, it's a Gramscian hegemonic strategy [1]. An example of such a writer is Owen Hatherley [2]. (C) Cities with a lot of brutalist architecture, prevalent in the former Soviet block, use it to market themselves are tourist destinations. This ties in with (A), for why would you go and visit a city unless it had something unusual to offer, something Instagrammable, something to talk about when you are back? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Hatherley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Hatherley

beaconstudios 8y ago
I think brutalism is more generally associated with authoritarianism, including use in modern government buildings. I think free people choose to incorporate aesthetics into their buildings where bureaucrats prefer utilitarian functional designs because they don't have to live with them or attempt to justify the value of aesthetics.
- walrus01 8y ago
  FBI HQ , Boston city hall, are two good examples.
- krapp 8y ago
  The aggressively dehumanizing aesthetic does seem to express the... brutality of the more fascistic interpretations of collectivism quite well. These buildings all seem to come from a dystopian future.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    the design reflects the mentality of the designer. Brutalism is totally utilitarian and reflects the perspective of occupant as unit on a spreadsheet. It's the ultimate expression of "you are a number, not a person".
walrus01 8y ago
If you look at how much a condo in Montreal's habitat 67 is selling for now, they're certainly not for the common "worker". North of $900k.
- jhbadger 8y ago
  True. But that's because it's the only example of the style and people like it (even many people who generally dislike Brutalism think habitat 67 is nice). The original idea was that it was going to be a prototype for future housing projects but that never happened.
expathacker 8y ago
> (B) Brutalism is often associated with left-wing / communist large-scale social engineering, and the left reflexively celebrates anything done by the left. (Aside, the association of brutalism with the left is historically quite false, e.g. people like Le Corbusier didn't meet a dictator he didn't like.) So where brutalism is celebrated by somebody who's explicitly and self-consciously political, it's a Gramscian hegemonic strategy [1]. An example of such a writer is Owen Hatherley [2]. Huh, quite an interesting take. On the contrary, I associate an appreciation of brutalism with those who post staunch free-market capitalist comments. I have many taken architectural tours in Bucaresti, Plovdiv, Sofia, Skopje, Moldova, Tbilisi, Beograd, Kiev, and Moscow. Unanimously, the tour-guides presented these buildings with disdain for their aesthetics and association with authoritarianism. All of the tour-guides were definitely left/liberal-leaning, some to the point of dreadlocks and Che Guevara hats. (Thanks for the links, by the way, I had never heard of Own Hatherly before!).
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  > On the contrary, I associate an appreciation of brutalism with those who post staunch free-market capitalist comments. I find that surprising. I associate them with architectural symbols of neoliberalism, namely modernist architecture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_architecture). Libertarians, I associate with the weird branch of modernist architecture that builds everything out of glass and trees and matt white surfaces and everywhere looks like Dubai. Perhaps a subset of contemporary architecture? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_architecture)
- pjc50 8y ago
  > disdain for their aesthetics and association with authoritarianism [under Communism] > Che Guevara hats There's some real semiotic collapse going on here. What does it mean to wear a Che Guevara hat? In the west you might see it alongside people trying to unironically revive the hammer and sickle. But there are plenty of people who lived in eastern Europe under Communism who would regard that symbol as just as symbolic of authoritarianism as the swastika.
- 8y ago

aikah 8y ago

The following is strictly my opinion. Misplaced romanticism. AFAIK historically Americans didn't park their poor people or immigrant workers into these huge brutalist apartment complexes like in Europe, or if they did it is somehow a new phenomenon. And I can assure you it's the same in western Europe. Not a lot of people value that architectural style given what it represents: a lot of political and social failure that carries so much shame and embarrassment we are trying to remove any trace of it.

punchclockhero 8y ago

Bulgarian here, Randian types around here prefer interbellum modernist architecture to the full blown Brutalism. As for the more extreme postwar architecture, it feels quite homey to me. Although I like it best when it's subverted by the inhabitants, humans living and leaving their mark, think flowers growing in a concrete crack.

coldtea 8y ago

>What's more interesting to me, is why HN is so attracted to Brutalism? It's just a term that got into fame (from a brutalist web design trend and manifesto) recently (a few years ago), and as thus it's in our mid-term memories from our web surfing, so folks on HN periodically rediscover it and post links about it here. No special attraction to Brutalism.