Aspects Of Brutalism

While many practical issues interrupted due to Modernist language, Robert Venturi wrote a book of “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture” and published in 1966. Book expresses the postmodernism and its rebellion to the purism of architecture. He respond to the quote of Mies van der Rohe “Less is more” as “Less is Bore” and discuss the architecture which should bow down to the complexities and contradictions. Architecture should be in touch with it in the creation of cities. After Modernisation, public spaces introduced into society and in the book of "The Society of the Spectacle” which is written by Guy Debord in 1967, criticize contemporary consumer culture and product fetishism which bring up the alienation of classes, mass media and homogenization of culture which

However while captivating as a civilizing and driving force, the prevailing opinion of the art’s imagery is envisioned to be on a par with that of classical Greek, Roman, and Renaissance era style. This societal banality is passionately endorsed by many including the dean of the Stanton Institute of Technology who insisted to Howard Roark that modern architecture shall “adapt the beauty of the past to the needs of the present” and that “the voice of the past” is the standard that all must collectively subordinate to (p.24). In contrast to the heroism elevated by Howard Roark, architecture has been alternatively revered as a phenomenon that invigorates collectivism as foretold by the antagonist Ellsworth M. Toohey. Penning an article entitled “Sermons in Stone” Toohey downgrades the ideal of architecture as the utmost decadence of the human spirit. Dismissing modernistic perspectives of the art, he perceives architecture in that “A great building is not the private invention of some genius or other. It is merely a condensation of the spirit of a people” (p.78). As the diabolical force that typifies affrontation to Howard Roark’s progressive ideology of heroic man-worship, Toohey is displayed by Ayn Rand as a by-product of the darkest side of the imagery of architecture.

With the social difficulties and economic unrest the 1970’s marked the end of brutalist architecture. Brutalist

Leon Krier was criticised for publishing a costly monograph on Albert Speer’s architecture (1985)in which, while acknowledging the crimes of the Nazis and the man, Krier nonetheless claimed the book’s only subject and sole justification was “Classical architecture and the passion of building” (cited by Jaskot, ‘Architecture of Oppression’, 2000). Discuss this claim, the controversy and the issues (historical, philosophical and ethical and possibly others) they raise. Can architecture, Classical, Modern or otherwise, be autonomous from politics and valued independently of the circumstances of politics and history that adhere to it?

Marshall Berman’s take on modernity is presented in his book All That Is Solid Melts into Air whereby he focuses on its issues and the cultural attitudes and philosophies towards the modern condition. In doing so he shares his experiences of modernity post WWII in New York in the height of an economic boom and then more specifically of his childhood neighbourhood, the Bronx. In addition to expanded austerity, industrial and architectural development, the end of WWII proved to be a key period in world history and by extension the history of art. A talented group of artists emerged in result that had been influenced by an influx of established European artist who had fled to New York to escape fascist regimes in their homelands. More importantly these artists produced art that was at the heart of maelstrom Berman describes in regards to his experience of modernity. I aim to highlight the correlation between Berman’s experience of modernity and the emergence of a new American modernism. Modernity throughout this period was broken into two different compartments, hermetically sealed off from one another: "modernisation" in economics and politics, "modernism" in art, culture and sensibility. It’s through the lens of this dualism in which we recognise that both Berman and these artists try to make sense of the world around them by making their individual expressions that would re-conceptualise what it is to be modern in the twentieth century.

Krauss is purely a structuralist and discontent with the terms modernist. Her critic and analysis in this essay is an extension of Greenberg, who believed that the work in objective terms; structure and medium, that later deferred to a subjective response and/or effect; abstraction art. Traditional sculputure had been lost it was not architecture and not

The return to Brutalism may just be mute and passing fad, as we stumble through history searching for examples which might offer quick and immediate solutions to our contemporary situation. The political and economical situations in advanced western countries discussed by Koolhaas & Self has reached a point of crisis. Calling into question the cultural production and institutions which architecture works within and constructs. By understanding the situation through the Hegelian dialectic, literature and architectural examples which look back to Brutalism highlight that architects and academics are searching for a language which can develop an antithetical position to our current neoliberal discourse and architectural production. The antithesis which contemporary brutalist’s are promoting can

Although brutalism functioned as a movement in modern architecture, it shared many ideas with the pop movement, including that of the “valuation of materials as found” (Potts 2014). Paolozzi sees the “mystery and magic in the everyday”, which Kirkpatrick calls the “schizophrenic quality” of western urban life (Kirkpatrick 1969, p. 24). This idea would be important for Paolozzi as he developed and revised his methods for gathering, selecting, and arranging found printed images of modern mass media into collages. As much as Paolozzi valued found materials, he also insisted on the transformation of those materials. For him, finding materials did not preclude their manipulation. He was not rigid in his artistic thought. Unlike some theory-based dada artists of the time, Paolozzi embraced uncertainty and was open to the unknown synergies that only collage could produce (Potts 2014). Elements of the mechanized human, of magic, and of damaged man (not without hope however!) permeate his early work, reactions to an age where mass communication rendered death and destruction available daily in newspapers, on Television, and in magazines (Kirkpatrick

On his book on Modern Architecture, Curtis writes that modern architecture was faulted for it’s “supposed lack of ‘recognizable imagery’” towards the end of the 1970s. This statement supports the idea of Jencks’ double coding where architects must now make

Using the quote by Habermas as a starting point, select up to two buildings designed in the twentieth century and examine what ‘sudden, shocking encounters’ they have encountered, or created. Analyse the building’s meanings as a demonstration of an avant-garde, or potentially arriere-garde, position.

This book was written by Juhani Pallasmaa with regard to ‘Polemics’, on issues that were part of the architecture discourse of the time, i.e. 1995. It is also an extending of ideas expressed in an essay entitled “Architecture of the seven senses” published in 1994.

Harries is a professor of Art and Architecture at Yale University. Originally born in Germany in the 1930’s Harries has a German background and his works are mainly focused on architecture and its corresponding art (“Karsten Harries”). The value of his book is that Harries is from Germany giving him a European perspective on art as well as an American since he lives in the United States. This book is limited the book covers a wide range of artistic movements since it focuses on Modern art, so it is not specifically designed to look at Dadaism as in depth as would be desired.

Vladimir Tatlin is possibly the most prominent example of the ‘worker’ ideology. The Monument to the Third International - perhaps the most influential and important piece of constructivist architecture - was highly acclaimed and idealised as exemplifying constructivist concepts. Its use of modern raw materials embodied the concept of Taktura, while its kinetic structure incorporated science into the architecture, reflecting the idea that architecture should be purposeful or even machine-like. Despite Tatlin’s name being at the forefront of the constructivist architectural scene,

During the years of fascism in Italy coexisted various artistic movements; among them the rationalist architecture was configured as the most modern one, to cutting-edge, into contact with European trends of functionalism.

Here it is possible to see how, for Rossi, typological study, as a form of rational study, was based not on norma­ tive facts but on the possibility of architectural form to evoke urban themes. Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation in Marseille with its rue int~rieure, or the Smithsons' project for the Golden Lane residential complex in London and its "streets in the air," are among the examples Rossi considered true representations of the city in the form of urban themes.l 8 Here, type is rendered not through universal rules but by the immediacy and singularity of an architectural event.