Brutalism Takes A Beating: 6 Embattled Brutalist Icons, And 1 That Lost The Fight

Architizer News

Brutalism Takes A Beating: 6 Embattled Brutalist Icons, And 1 That Lost The Fight

January 14, 2013

Orange County Government Center. Photo courtesy National Trust for Historic Preservation/Ani Od Chai

Brutalism, as a style of building, doesn’t try to endear itself to the public, which is why, perhaps, it’s consistently shunned by it. Sure, Brutalist architecture is difficult to love; it can be alienating, it’s overly large, and it refuses to back down. But when you fall for it, you fall hard. The weighty concrete forms and the undeniable bravado with which they’re employed are enough to make most contemporary buildings blush. Here is architecture with daring and substance.

Still, Brutalism is hard to live with. It’s just so much easier to settle in the cardboard Neo-Georgian houses where we live or abide in the blank, yet innocuous office towers where we work. Brutalism, on the other hand, makes it a point to disrupt the genteel homogeneity of urban life—or it did. The last few years have seen a public backlash against Brutalism—usually supported by faceless developers, easily coerced politicians, and armchair sociology—resulting in the impending or speculative demolition of some of the movement’s greatest icons, such as Alison and Peter Smithson’s Robin Hood Gardens and even Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles’ Boston City Hall. Last week’s news that Prentice Women’s Hospital will likely be bulldozed continues the trend, and it got us thinking about other embattled Brutalist buildings. Click through to see them!

For a more comprehensive look at this controversial architectural style, read our “Brief, Wondrous History of Brutalism.”

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Boston City Hall
Location: Boston
Architect: Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles
Built: 1968
Status: Plans to rebuild a new city hall on a different site emerged in the late 1990s but never materialized. Preservationists have rallied to protect Kallmann McKinnell and Knowles’s Brutalist structure; currently, there are no plans to tear it down.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Peavey Plaza
Location: Minneapolis
Architect: M. Paul Friedberg + Partners
Built: 1975
Status: Slated to be demolished and rebuilt using a design by Oslund and Associates.

Photo courtesy Mid-Century Mundane

Orange County Government Center
Location: Goshen, New York
Architect: Paul Rudolph
Built: 1967
Status: The building narrowly escaped the bulldozer after county legislators, in April 2012, voted 11-10 to not issue a bond that would fund its demolition.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Morris A. Mechanic Theatre
Location: Baltimore
Architect: John M. Johansen
Built: 1965
Status: The building’s fate hangs in the balance. A developer has proposed razing the structure and building two towers in its place. City officials have not yet approved the demolition.