Brutalist Buildings in Your Region

[Nowhereman1280]

Originally Posted by mhays

Those are horrific. I highly doubt the general public likes any of them. Popularity with the Dwell/AR crowd means nothing other than, as you put it, a cult likes it.

The two whose bases I can see include one that might be ok for retail depending on how it treats the side street, and one that would be a flat out disaster for retail, if it tried, which it apparently doesn't.

Your doubts don't add up to truth. Fact of the matter is that the first and third buildings have both received several awards and are generally quite popular.

If the one you say would be bad for retail is the last one then you are right seeing as how its not designed for retail at all. It is Jones Prep, a high school, which generally don't need a whole lot in the way of retail space.

Again though, your opinion of these buildings and doubts as to whether or not anyone likes these are irrelevant. Fact of the matter is Brutalism is back in vogue since lots of it is being built. Obviously some people like these buildings or the three residential towers wouldn't all have sold as well as they did...

Here's another popular neo-brutalist tower in Chicago:

Skybridge:


yochicago.com

That huge wall on the left side abuts a freeway which is why its blank. The base of the building contains a ton of retail including a hugely popular Dominicks grocery store location:


flickr

This was one of the fastest selling towers of the early boom and continues to be a very popular condo tower today.

[CGII]

The new Standard Hotel over NY's High Line park features a unitized glass curtain wall, but incorporates a great deal of brutal details; exposed, angled concrete, layered public circulation and a delicate emphasis of infrastructural elements, among other things. Retail/commercial spaces are peppered throughout the building, including two nightclubs at the top level, two restaurants at the 3rd floor/High Line level, and a beer garden, restaurant, and flexible outdoor retail space (currently an ice rink) at the ground level. All of the commercial aspects are performing well. It has garnered high critical acclaim and popular appeal.


apartmenttherapy.com


aria9 on flickr.com


structurehub.com


shinya on flickr.com


a.mccrory on flickr.com

[mhays]

That NY building is pretty bad too, particularly in person.

Nowhereman, supemarkets, and other convenience retail, don't have the same issues that destination retail does. People go there as routine. And, like I said, discount retail doesn't try very hard...people are looking for cheap, and don't mind cheap looking buildings. By destination retail I mean the nicer urban streets as well as most malls priced for the upper half. There's veeery little brutalism in that sort of retail, except if it's part of a boutique's motif.

You're basing popularity on sales and whether the cult keeps building it? Neither has much to do with architectural popularity. People buy condos because they like the locations, floor plans, square footage, amenities, and other points, way more than exterior architecture.

Buildings' aesthetics are developed based on the taste of exactly two people, the developer (the main guy) and the main design architect, with city design committees futzing with details if they're empowered to do so, the rest of the design team putting in their two cents, and the contractor helping make it (or most of it) happen at the best price. It's a process that results in fad design, but has little to do with what the public likes.

[pico44]

Originally Posted by mhays

That NY building is pretty bad too, particularly in person.

Huh? I haven't met many people who don't like The Standard. I think it's one of New Yorks best designs of the last decade.

Here some of my favorite New York brutalist structures:

Silver Towers


http://www.flickr.com/photos/emilio_guerra/4290538674/


Kips Bay Plaza - Pei's people machine

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32224170@N03/3318568028/

http://rwarchitextures.blogspot.com/...2/pei-day.html
The above website has lots of great pictures of this brutalist masterpiece


Whitney Museum

http://thescoutmag.com/blog/art/425/...at_the_whitney


Chatham Towers

http://untitledname.com/2005/07/chatham-towers


PanAm Building - some say this is modernism, I don't agree. This is huge, concrete brutalism at its very finest.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/city-...w-york-90.html

[pico44]

Ooooh, I forgot one of my favorites, or--more likely--many of my favorites.

Anyhow, this commieblock on Roosevelt Island is fantastic:


The Great Sabotai
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=172365

[Nowhereman1280]

Originally Posted by mhays

That NY building is pretty bad too, particularly in person.

Nowhereman, supemarkets, and other convenience retail, don't have the same issues that destination retail does. People go there as routine. And, like I said, discount retail doesn't try very hard...people are looking for cheap, and don't mind cheap looking buildings. By destination retail I mean the nicer urban streets as well as most malls priced for the upper half. There's veeery little brutalism in that sort of retail, except if it's part of a boutique's motif.

You're basing popularity on sales and whether the cult keeps building it? Neither has much to do with architectural popularity. People buy condos because they like the locations, floor plans, square footage, amenities, and other points, way more than exterior architecture.

Buildings' aesthetics are developed based on the taste of exactly two people, the developer (the main guy) and the main design architect, with city design committees futzing with details if they're empowered to do so, the rest of the design team putting in their two cents, and the contractor helping make it (or most of it) happen at the best price. It's a process that results in fad design, but has little to do with what the public likes.

Lol so now we are no longer talking about retail, but now "destination retail". We are now ignoring the opinions of critics, hipster cults, homebuyers, and architects and using some mysterious abstract definition of "popularity". Stop just changing the definition whenever you are wrong.

Fact of the matter is there is no way to measure the opinion of the hypothetical group of people you believe determine the "popularity" of architectural styles. Even if you could, I bet you'd find that 90% of people are apathetic and don't even look up to see what the building they are entering looks like. Therefore it is the opinions of the art-nerds, developers, architects, and critics that matter because they are the only ones who actually stop to think about or form opinions on the architecture around them.

[mhays]

I'm sure it's confusing to you.

For others I'll repeat my two points:
1. Brutalism isn't popular to the general public.
2. Architecture affects the success of destination retail centers.

Neither of these points is debated much among those who successfully design or develop retail except in very specialized situations...these people live and die based on certain principles, which is why retail tends to look the way it does.

Pico, in your posts, Pan Am is a good building.

[CGII]

Originally Posted by mhays

Neither of these points is debated much among those who successfully design or develop retail except in very specialized situations...these people live and die based on certain principles, which is why retail tends to look the way it does.

Retail design success owes more to layout and organization than to aesthetic preference.

[mhays]

Depends what you're selling. Aesthetics and mood play a big part in lifestyle, recreational, and general high-end retail. There's a huge difference between retail that's about feeling good vs. retail that's about getting cheap stuff.

This is 10 commandments stuff for the retail industry. The debate is about "how," not "whether."

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

mhays, at one time Victorian era architecture was reviled. Now it and other pre-War styles are adored for their historicity. To think modern architecture and its variants (like brutalism) won't experience a similar resurgence among the hoi polloi at some point in the future ignores the cyclical nature of popular taste.

It's also important to remember that the "members" of the "cult" (?) you deem irrelevant often shape popular taste, if I correctly understand your use of the word. Depending on the medium/industry, it may take a few seasons or years; regardless, whatever the masses end up gravitating towards (in food, fashion, art, architecture, etc.) is usually some version of what a much smaller, more forward-thinking group of people picked up on much earlier.

Anyway, all that really only matters if we accept your premise about brutalism, but, considering how off your assessment of New York's Standard hotel is (based on the critical acclaim of the design and its economic success), we don't really have much reason to.

[MolsonExport]

I work in Brutalism: Here is my place of work (Social Science Centre, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada).


farm3.static.flickr.com

The rest of the campus is fantastic, but my building is just fugly. Something really bad happened in the 70s on campuses across North America.


uwo.ca

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Ch.G, Ch.G

mhays, at one time Victorian era architecture was reviled. Now it and other pre-War styles are adored for their historicity. To think modern architecture and its variants (like brutalism) won't experience a similar resurgence among the hoi polloi at some point in the future ignores the cyclical nature of popular taste.

It's also important to remember that the "members" of the "cult" (?) you deem irrelevant often shape popular taste, if I correctly understand your use of the word. Depending on the medium/industry, it may take a few seasons or years; regardless, whatever the masses end up gravitating towards (in food, fashion, art, architecture, etc.) is usually some version of what a much smaller, more forward-thinking group of people picked up on much earlier.

Anyway, all that really only matters if we accept your premise about brutalism, but, considering how off your assessment of New York's Standard hotel is (based on the critical acclaim of the design and its economic success), we don't really have much reason to.

Critical acclaim and economic success have very little to do with whether the public likes a building, depending on type. Locals "vote with their feet" on destination retail, very much unlike hotels. I've stayed in an ugly hotel in the Meatpacking District too. Critical acclaim often comes from the same Dwell/AR crowd. The AIA and AR are very aware through their own polling that the public's opinions and their own don't overlap.

The "cult" term came from Nowhereman.

I said nothing about whether brutalism would become popular someday. Just that it's not popular now, and tends to coincide with unsuccessful retail where it exists.

[wrab]

South Shore High School, Chicago (Fridstein & Fitch, 1969), currently under demolition order:


reallyboring at Flickr

[mhays]

In my city, we've been renovating schools for 15 years under a series of bond issues valued around $1.5 billion so far. In every case I can think of, whatever was built WWII-1970 or so is being demolished and replaced, and the older parts are being renovated. Some is due to the difficulty of upgrading the postwar buildings vs. older buildings, but mostly it's aesthetics and the quality of the learning environment. These bond issues have won by increasing margins, 70-30 for the last one if I recall. The public loves what's happening.

I follow all of this stuff because as a contractor, my company builds retail, hotels, offices, multifamily, schools, etc., and one of my jobs is to understand trends and the drivers behind them. (For example we renovated my old high school a couple years ago...restored the old school and demo'd/replaced the bunker-like gym.)

[Jasoncw]

Yeah, but in a lot of those cases, the post war school buildings replaced pre war school buildings with the exact same reasoning as you described.

Now we might look back and think it was a mistake, but the general public at the time didn't. Eventually the public will be lamenting the demolition of modern buildings.

There's always a period after buildings are new enough to still be trendy, but are not yet old enough to be classics or historic. And of course a building's lifespan (ALL buildings need upkeep and periodic renovations) can often coincide with that time period. So you have buildings that aren't very popular at the moment, and which need money spent on renovations, so the public, which doesn't really think about these things much, opts for replacement.

Edit: I guess I haven't said anything that the others haven't just said, except that the trends you're concerned with are short term trends which you're trying to take advantage of to get work. For you it doesn't matter if in 15 years the public thinks the work you were hired for is a mistake, and if you're lucky you might even get the job to undo the renovations you worked on.

[mhays]

Classical styles returned to popularity after a brief hiatus. That's very different than a fad that hasn't been popular since.

Speaking of the "not old enough" point, the same AIA polling I mentioned made that excuse for buildings all the way back to 1950. If found this very amusing. People grew up with buildings from the 50s just like they grew up with ones from the 20s, and nostalgia between the two should be about even.

A lot of brutalism was built very openly (little pun) as defense against riots. Even then it wasn't necessarily about liking brutalism.

The same goes for fortress-like buildings built today in some places. They can help make occupants feel secure. For many people that's a draw. Again, it's not necessarily that they think it looks good.

[The_Architect]

The Ron Joyce Centre in Hamilton, ON:

[Nowhereman1280]

Originally Posted by mhays

Classical styles returned to popularity after a brief hiatus. That's very different than a fad that hasn't been popular since.

Speaking of the "not old enough" point, the same AIA polling I mentioned made that excuse for buildings all the way back to 1950. If found this very amusing. People grew up with buildings from the 50s just like they grew up with ones from the 20s, and nostalgia between the two should be about even.

Again, everything you are saying is anecdotal and contributes nothing to the discussion. Let me use the same tactics:

Actually you are wrong, people who grew up with buildings from the 50's clearly like buildings that existed when they grew up in the 1950's. People who grew up with buildings from 1960's onward clearly like buildings that existed when they grew up, like brutalist buildings. Those people from the 50's and earlier are all dying so clearly the modernism will become infinitely more popular until everyone who is left alive only likes modernism. This is self evident because its what I've observed...

Don't even bother responding to what I just said because I'll just say exactly the same thing, but reworded and assert that I'm correct because I've observed it to be true...

A lot of brutalism was built very openly (little pun) as defense against riots. Even then it wasn't necessarily about liking brutalism.

The same goes for fortress-like buildings built today in some places. They can help make occupants feel secure. For many people that's a draw. Again, it's not necessarily that they think it looks good.

First of all that's a complete myth that arose because of comments made by the architects in the architecture department of Berkley University during and after a series of student sit ins and riots during the 1960's. The professors proposed tearing down older buildings and replacing them with brutalist structures in order to deter students from rioting or having sit ins. It never happened. The real reason that Brutalism is popular on college campuses is that the largest building boom and expansion of the US university system occurred as the baby boomers went to college in the late 60's and 1970's which just happened to coincide with the peak of the popularity of brutalism.

Second of all your theory is bunk because I'm sure you wouldn't find castles to be ugly while I'm certain you would find open, glassy, Miesian boxes to be hideous. Which one is more fortress like? The delicate glass of modernism or the block stone of a castle?

[mattias]

Originally Posted by TANGELD_SLC

LDS Church Office Building

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/26/63...ea756973_b.jpg


http://farm1.static.flickr.com/151/3...14bcdcdca9.jpg

I'd post more, but can't find the pics I want

Actually, I've spoken with an architect on the staff of the LDS Church, and he informed me the Church Office Building is International architecture, not Brutalist. He said three features of the building reveal this: 1) There is a large main section at the base of the building that also contains offices which runs horizontal to the main tower. 2) The building is symmetrical. 3) The use of very white stone material on the outside.

Interesting, as I would not have known that these 3 things draw some of the main differences between Brutalist and Internationalist architecture, which were contemporaries in their timing.

[mattias]

Here is an example at the University of Utah where neo-brutalism was recently used in an expansion of the Marriott Library. The ground levels were dug out and added in the mid 1990s, and massive concrete stair systems, entryways, and banks of windows were added to the ground level.

Notice that the Marriott Library main building is actually an International style architecture, but I think the brutalism at the base makes a great compliment to it, and looks good on its own. Also, notice the infamous brutalist tower structure behind it, which I think needs a bit of modernization... it is a bit too much brutalism. And notice the amount of exposed concrete that you can see on the opposite wall that is reflected in the glass windows in the last photo.

I've always thought the ground level looked awesome and reminds me of the entry to the rebel base on the planet Hoth in "Empire Strikes Back".

Hoth base:


Marriott Library Ground Level Entrance



Concrete Stair System which wraps around the perimeter of the building