london global city space postwar film modernist novel

Europe's major cities were heavily bomb-damaged, while the need to clear urban slums, and a widespread desire to improve the lot of the common citizen, inspired largescale rehousing projects across much of the continent. Brutalism emerged at a time of urgent need for large-scale, affordable residential architecture.But whereas International Style often favored a sleek, streamlined efficiency of construction - doing the most with the least - Brutalism was more likely to emphasize the brash abundance of its materials, drawing attention to the weight, density, and mass of concrete, steel, and stone. Sullivan's famous 'form follows function' maxim, which had inspired an earlier wave of modernist architecture culminating in the International Style. The way in which Brutalism emphasized the physical properties of building materials represented an update on Louis H.For Brutalist architects this approach showed a truth to the textural qualities of materials, and to the labor of construction, that epitomized their socially engaged, ethics-driven approach to their work. Brutalism's most famous stylistic motif was the use of raw concrete (French 'béton brut') for exterior surfaces, leaving evidence of the construction process, such as the holes and seamlines left by the setting of liquid concrete, visible on the outsides of buildings.In the decades following its zenith, Brutalism became redolent of urban deprivation and decline, largely because of its use in largescale social housing projects, but in the twenty-first century Brutalism is decidedly back in critical and popular fashion. In this sense, it was partly inspired by democratic-socialist visions of community, but it was also propelled by the avant-garde idiosyncrasies of maverick architects, and it is remembered as much for the 'devil-may-care' brashness of its designs as for their communitarian ethos. Brutalism sought to adapt earlier principles to a post-war world where urban reconstruction was a pressing necessity.

Brutalism emerged after the Second World War but was rooted in the ideas of functionalism and monumental simplicity that had defined earlier architectural modernism, including the International Style. But its achievements also proved shocking and controversial, partly because of its emphasis on the use of unfinished concrete for exterior surfaces.

Brutalism was a movement in modern architecture responsible for some of the most striking building designs of the twentieth century.

London global city space postwar film modernist novel