SkyscraperPage Forum - The Great Canadian Brutalism Appreciation Thread

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The Great Canadian Brutalism Appreciation Thread

Your post reminds me of a blog I like to read from time to time. The writer seems to be a fan of brutalist/modernist architecture.

Here's a link:

https://halifaxbloggers.ca/noticedinnovascotia/

The blog as a search function where you could enter "brutalist", "concrete", etc. if you want to find those posts specifically.

Great idea for a thread.

I've yet to see a brutalist building anywhere in the world that is not depressing and ugly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jigglysquishy (Post 8843443)

I've yet to see a brutalist building anywhere in the world that is not depressing and ugly.

Quote:

49. In a recent Forbes interview, Hollywood director Steward Hendler, whose upcoming film Halo was partly shot at SFU, described the campus as having “incredible, brutal concrete architecture. It actually has the highest suicide rate of any campus in Canada because it is so bleak, but that worked in our favour because it really feels like something from outer space.” In fact, the alleged high suicide rate is an urban legend that has been around — and been proven false — since the early 1980s.

https://theprovince.com/news/local-n...ser-university

Robarts Library (aka the Turkey) - UofT

https://i.imgur.com/WA5EtDh.png

Quote:

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin (Post 8843433)

Arthur Erickson's University of Lethbridge, opened in 1967:

Exactly what I was going to post. A lot of Brutalism is ugly, but one is awesome, looks like it is out a sci fi movie. It seems more rare today to build something that is so starkly contradsts with the natural landscape, now we view every inch of earth as sacrosanct.

Love this thread. Does anyone know the building they use for the stand in of the Mars Congressional Republic Embassy on Earth in The Expanse? The scenes in the UN capital (New York) are mostly filmed in Toronto, so I figured it's there somewhere.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/26/e6...0a3ba5d9c0.png

Edit: Omg :haha: It's the first post on this page! U of T Scarborough! Wild.

It's the first building in the OP

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrankieFlowerpot (Post 8843477)

It's the first building in the OP

Yeah haha I had already edited the bottom of my post before you mentioned that :P I felt dumb. To be fair though, it doesn't show an entrance shot like the one I posted.

The former Calgary Board of Education building. It has so much potential to be an awesome institutional building downtown, but it's been sitting idle for around a decade now.

https://cdn.skyrisecities.com/sites/...6113-91156.png
https://calgary.skyrisecities.com/ne...-citys-history

It reminds me a little of the south side of Vancouver's Robson Square, the part attached to the BC Courthouse. It has soooo much potential, but it's just rotting. Thankfully they restored the 'Family of Man' sculptures a couple years ago though.

https://www.westonlangford.com/media/photos/401313.jpg
https://www.westonlangford.com/images/photo/401313/

https://live.staticflickr.com/8314/8...5cd1bb63_b.jpg
https://www.flickr.com/photos/volvob12b/8068145941

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pavlov (Post 8843430)

Great idea for a thread.

:tup: I have a lot of affection for brutalism, though I can understand why many find it an aesthetic of frigidity, impersonalness, and despair.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin (Post 8843376)

How about some love for this under appreciated style?

None from me. It's an interesting curiosity, but it is always deleterious in an urban context.

I challenge anyone to post a photo of a brutalist building in a city that isn't ugly in and of itself and/or makes its surroundings worse.

Weldon Library, Western University, London.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Ontario_1.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by jigglysquishy (Post 8843443)

I've yet to see a brutalist building anywhere in the world that is not depressing and ugly.

SFU is extra depressing due to the weather in Vancouver. It's cloudy for 6 months, rainy for most of that. SFU is high enough that it gets more fog from low hanging clouds.

It used to be very isolating up there for people who lived on campus, since there were no "stores" for groceries, etc. You had to drive down the mountain, or take the bus. Pretty isolating for people moving from somewhere else.

The environment is better now with more private development and a bit of a community forming.