Archives: Brutalisms

Unité d’Habitation

The Unité is generally considered the most important role model for the young brutalists. The term béton brut comes from Corbusier’s description of the building. Especially striking and innovative: the use of sculptural exposed concrete that had bee…

Preston Bus Station

Combination of bus terminus for a maximum of 80 double-decker buses and 4-storey car park for 1,100 cars. The huge edifice measuring 170 meters in length effectively places something the size of an airport in the center of a town with 140,000 inhabitant…

Government Offices (today: Cameron Offices)

The Cameron Offices were planned at a time when the focus of urban planning was on expanding suburbs. The most characteristic façade element: the pillars that are placed on the outside to enable interiors free of supports.

Yale Art Gallery

In 1955 Banham ranked this building as the second most important example of brutalism after the Smithsons’ design for the Hunstanton School. That said, he felt Kahn’s handling of details was too “arty” and the visual unity of inside and outside …

Rank-Xerox-Hauptverwaltung

The administrative complex consists of multiple hexagonal segments, grouped around a core. The various parts are offset by half a level and connected with stairs. This split level layout creates a continuously ascending, spiral office space. With the su…

City Hall

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Dr. Banvinck School

Built in the early 1920s, with its massive brick volumes, whereby the brickwork is completely visible, the school can be read as a kind of precursor to the brutalist idiom.

Thermal Bath Felsentherme

The thermal bath is partly built into the hollowed out mountains. The interior combines the rough surfaces of the rocks with concrete elements. (Special thanks to Norbert Mayr)

Cathédrale du Sacré-Cœur d’Alger

The cathédrale du Sacré-Cœur replaced the nineteenth-century cathedral of St. Philip. The cathedral is positioned on a hill in the centre of Algiers. It is approached via a series of steps and terraces and has a square ground plan. It is entirely co…

Art and Architecture Building, Yale University

Highly controversial among the experts from the outset. Nikolaus Pevsner was the speaker at the opening, but was skeptical to the point of almost being impolite. The building responds in terms of urban fabric to the introverted Yale Art Gallery by Louis…

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