by Sheree Zielke

Created on: April 16, 2007   Last Updated: April 25, 2007

Brutalist architecture is a simpler cleaner architectural design. It embodies the opposite of the designer term, "form over function." With a "we-mean-business" look of poured-concrete and steel beams, these mid-twentieth century buildings are highly functional, with aesthetic finishes running a very distant second.

Brutalist architecture was in fashion from the mid-fifties to the mid-seventies. It was during that time period that Americans built one of their Brutalist buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington; the Brits erected one of theirs on the South Bank in Lambeth; the Aussies planted one in their Stirling Gardens in Perth.

Like the J. Edgar Hoover building (FBI headquarters) in Washington, which opened its doors in 1974, many Brutalist style buildings feature repeating open spaces, reminiscent of massive cement honeycombs.

The Council House skyscraper in Perth, Western Australia, opened in 1962, is very typical of the Brutalist style, too, with its repetitive honeycomb geometric form, and no fussy architectural details.

Britain's Royal National Theater, opened in 1976, is a blocky structure of concrete towers and cement terraces. The building is highly functional, both inside and out, but desperately devoid of aesthetic facade details.

The Brutalist style is believed to have originated with the modernistic designs of Charles Edouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier (an assumed name). This French architect embraced the clean lines of simple geometric forms, especially those made of uninviting rough-cast concrete, his trademark. He believed all buildings were tools and that," a house is a machine for living in."

Perhaps Britain's Prince Charles said it best when he summed up the stark characteristics of Brutalism architecture, in his critique of the Royal National Theater, referring to it as, "a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London without anyone objecting."

In short, Brutalist architecture is not for the fussy; it is a rock solid "take-no-prisoners" design philosophy, where the building facade is important only in that it must exist to enclose a functional interior.

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