I think people often describe brutalism as cold, souless, dehumanizing, etc. But the principle behind is actually very humanitarian. They forgo grandiose decorations, embellishments, and instead choose to rather gain their form from function, and to maximize their functions so they can serve their inhabitants better. Many, many brutalist buildings were built as affordable, social housing during the post war era, when wealth inequality was perhaps the lowest in Europe.
And additionally, to me, because of how laid bare they are, they become an embodiment of transparency, and honesty that I wish our society can have more of.
(Don’t listen to me, there are many good articles/videos explaining brutalism way better than I could. Maybe this video on Habitat 67?)
Except a lot of the brutalist architecture in the UK looks like shit and the towers are shit, which is why they’re being knocked down. Those tower blocks are SUPPOSED to have shops and amenities inside them, but the British ones don’t, so they exist solely as shitholes nobody with a choice wants to live in.
It also doesn’t help that tower blocks very quickly became a dumping ground for local councils to throw unwanted tenants into, so troublemakers, those who can’t be housed anywhere else. The image of a tower block became one of high crime, social isolation and poor construction. Couple that with Grenfell Tower and you’ve got “Death trap” added to the list.
You are seeing on a glimpse of a huge, interconnected social issue that I don’t have the ability to competently articulate. Council housing obviously have a bad self-reinforcing image problem: no one wants to live in them, so only desperate people live there; because only desperate people live there, no one wants to live there. But that’s because the government fucked it up, it’s not an inherent attribute of social housing. UK had pretty good social housing post-war until Thatcher gutted it with things like Right to Buy.
If there is a solution to the worsening housing crisis, then social housing must be an integral part of that solution. So we must get building and normalize the image of social housing. I get quite mad looking at the current Labour government just sits doing nothing about it.
Grenfell Tower is its special kind of hell too. Sure the building itself wasn’t kept up to standard, but also the abhorrent response to the fire. The residents were told to STAY PUT IN THE BUILDING ffs.
So yeah, makes me feel bad that brutalist architecture gets bad reputation in the UK despite they themselves doing nothing wrong.
It’s not the social housing that’s the problem though, it’s specifically the tower blocks. Social housing by-and-large worked pretty well, with some pretty nice council housing being put up and people living in them without too much issue. The thing is, there’s a big difference between a socially isolated tower block and a council house in the suburbs, a lot of which was eaten away by Right-to-Buy because it turns out they were really nice houses so people wanted them. Almost nobody wants to buy a flat in a tower block.
The 'Stay Put thing for Grenfell Tower was actually good policy… When the tower was built. Each apartment acted essentially as its own fireproof box, so under the original design, staying put is actually the best policy to have, because you knew a fire was only ever going to exist in one of the boxes. It’s when those boxes are compromised that things become a problem, stuff like unauthorised knock-throughs and especially the flammable cladding (that was added later) on the outside of the building. It turned all those fireproof boxes into fireproof boxes except on one side, so when that cladding caught fire, it just set fire to all of the boxes.
Can you share a little about the philosophy behind brutalism?
I think people often describe brutalism as cold, souless, dehumanizing, etc. But the principle behind is actually very humanitarian. They forgo grandiose decorations, embellishments, and instead choose to rather gain their form from function, and to maximize their functions so they can serve their inhabitants better. Many, many brutalist buildings were built as affordable, social housing during the post war era, when wealth inequality was perhaps the lowest in Europe.
And additionally, to me, because of how laid bare they are, they become an embodiment of transparency, and honesty that I wish our society can have more of.
(Don’t listen to me, there are many good articles/videos explaining brutalism way better than I could. Maybe this video on Habitat 67?)
Except a lot of the brutalist architecture in the UK looks like shit and the towers are shit, which is why they’re being knocked down. Those tower blocks are SUPPOSED to have shops and amenities inside them, but the British ones don’t, so they exist solely as shitholes nobody with a choice wants to live in.
It also doesn’t help that tower blocks very quickly became a dumping ground for local councils to throw unwanted tenants into, so troublemakers, those who can’t be housed anywhere else. The image of a tower block became one of high crime, social isolation and poor construction. Couple that with Grenfell Tower and you’ve got “Death trap” added to the list.
You are seeing on a glimpse of a huge, interconnected social issue that I don’t have the ability to competently articulate. Council housing obviously have a bad self-reinforcing image problem: no one wants to live in them, so only desperate people live there; because only desperate people live there, no one wants to live there. But that’s because the government fucked it up, it’s not an inherent attribute of social housing. UK had pretty good social housing post-war until Thatcher gutted it with things like Right to Buy.
If there is a solution to the worsening housing crisis, then social housing must be an integral part of that solution. So we must get building and normalize the image of social housing. I get quite mad looking at the current Labour government just sits doing nothing about it.
Grenfell Tower is its special kind of hell too. Sure the building itself wasn’t kept up to standard, but also the abhorrent response to the fire. The residents were told to STAY PUT IN THE BUILDING ffs.
So yeah, makes me feel bad that brutalist architecture gets bad reputation in the UK despite they themselves doing nothing wrong.
It’s not the social housing that’s the problem though, it’s specifically the tower blocks. Social housing by-and-large worked pretty well, with some pretty nice council housing being put up and people living in them without too much issue. The thing is, there’s a big difference between a socially isolated tower block and a council house in the suburbs, a lot of which was eaten away by Right-to-Buy because it turns out they were really nice houses so people wanted them. Almost nobody wants to buy a flat in a tower block.
The 'Stay Put thing for Grenfell Tower was actually good policy… When the tower was built. Each apartment acted essentially as its own fireproof box, so under the original design, staying put is actually the best policy to have, because you knew a fire was only ever going to exist in one of the boxes. It’s when those boxes are compromised that things become a problem, stuff like unauthorised knock-throughs and especially the flammable cladding (that was added later) on the outside of the building. It turned all those fireproof boxes into fireproof boxes except on one side, so when that cladding caught fire, it just set fire to all of the boxes.
So. Form follows function.
But thanks for the summary!
It’s just so BRUTAL. What more to saaay