― ipsofacto (ipsofacto), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:04 (twenty years ago) link
― DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:06 (twenty years ago) link
― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:07 (twenty years ago) link
― jel -- (jel), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:08 (twenty years ago) link
― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:09 (twenty years ago) link
I think what you are referring to is known in architectural circles as Brutalsim.
To answer the general point, this building alone justifies the use of concrete in architecture:http://users.compaqnet.be/cn117945/deconstr/10deconstrgroot.jpg
xpost.
That picture is fucking beautiful.
― hmmm (hmmm), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:10 (twenty years ago) link
http://www.runchadrun.com/personal/london/gifs/wall.jpg
― Super-Kate (kate), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:12 (twenty years ago) link
And on my walk to work along the South Bank here in London I go by all these dull concrete buildings - Royal Festival Hall, Hayward Gallery, IBM, etc. Awful. And yes, they look worse when the concrete gets wet or dirty over time. Painting it is fruitless - it starts to crack off after a few years anyway.
― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:12 (twenty years ago) link
― robster (robster), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:13 (twenty years ago) link
http://www.djc.com/stories/images/20020502/OldConcrete_Airshot.JPG
oh, well
― RJG (RJG), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:14 (twenty years ago) link
― hmmm (hmmm), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:16 (twenty years ago) link
― RJG (RJG), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:19 (twenty years ago) link
I will not hear a word agains the National Theatre or UEA either (as you see I am in favour of ziggurats).
― Pete (Pete), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:20 (twenty years ago) link
― chris (chris), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:21 (twenty years ago) link
There are these low, dark coridors, more like rabbit warrens, intercut with these huge yawning chasms like something out of the Death Star.
Yes, it's beautiful, but I would hate to live in it.
The external face is beautiful, but the bits that people have to live in are small and dark and quite dank. There's no place for social interaction with your neighbours, but lots of places for muggers to lie in wait.
― Super-Kate (kate), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:22 (twenty years ago) link
I like boring glass buildings. Minimalist shiny glass architecture = shiny minimal techno. Sprawling concrete complexes = old-skool 70s prog r0x0r.
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:24 (twenty years ago) link
― hmmm (hmmm), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:27 (twenty years ago) link
― Pete (Pete), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:31 (twenty years ago) link
The only thing I can think that's even edible there is the Japanese place!
― Super-Kate (kate), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:32 (twenty years ago) link
http://wiem.onet.pl/wiem/bmp/49486-3744.jpg
http://www.scroll.demon.co.uk/jpg/brazil/brasilia/bra16.jpg
http://www.cendotec.org.br/imagens/alvorada.jpg
― RJG (RJG), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:36 (twenty years ago) link
There is so much wrong with this statement. Concrete inhabits the same modernist realm as steel and glass. Concrete architecture is the kraftwerk and idustrial of arhcitecture. Steel and class in more like trance ocassional there is some good but most of the time it's just lazy bad design and no substance.
― Ed (dali), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:44 (twenty years ago) link
― Ed (dali), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:46 (twenty years ago) link
― Ed (dali), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:47 (twenty years ago) link
i have warmed considerably to the Trellick. i used to think it was hideous and perhaps in a way it is, but the actual interior design is superb (not been in but saw a detailed BBC docu piece on it a few months back)
shame we don't have Niemeyer stuff here really
― stevem (blueski), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:53 (twenty years ago) link
sprawling concrete complexes = 70's old-skool TG/CV
shiny minimal techno = 'secondary moderns'
minimalist shiny glass architecture = philip glass, obv
― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:53 (twenty years ago) link
ihttp://www.archnewsnow.com/features/images/Feature0123_04x.jpg
― RJG (RJG), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:55 (twenty years ago) link
― stevem (blueski), Friday, 16 April 2004 11:55 (twenty years ago) link
― stevem (blueski), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:00 (twenty years ago) link
-- Tim (hopkinsti...), December 5th, 2002 12:20 PM.
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:04 (twenty years ago) link
http://www.archcenter.ru/rus/news/nonlinear/SAARINEN-TWA.JPG
http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/dulles/Dulles1.jpg
http://butthead.ton.tut.fi/~samppa/csc299-01/photos/gateway_arch.jpg
― RJG (RJG), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:06 (twenty years ago) link
The Hairy Tortoise Kate. Home of the finest Malaysian Chicken Curry & Rice Evah!
― Pete (Pete), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:08 (twenty years ago) link
― Super-Kate (kate), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:09 (twenty years ago) link
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:11 (twenty years ago) link
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/patrimoine-XX/fr/valorisation/images/flaine.jpg
http://www.saintjohnsabbey.org/postcards/photos/abchurext.jpg
― RJG (RJG), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:11 (twenty years ago) link
― stevem (blueski), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:12 (twenty years ago) link
Or, xpost, what Stevem said.
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:13 (twenty years ago) link
xpost
― hmmm (hmmm), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:13 (twenty years ago) link
― RJG (RJG), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:14 (twenty years ago) link
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:15 (twenty years ago) link
― hmmm (hmmm), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:41 (twenty years ago) link
― Ed (dali), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:44 (twenty years ago) link
?
― RJG (RJG), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:47 (twenty years ago) link
The solution is not pink paint but light-emitting concrete.
― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:49 (twenty years ago) link
― RJG (RJG), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:52 (twenty years ago) link
and do you mean Emley mast Ed? Ilkeston is at the bottom of a valley near Derby? If so yeah, right on the tops above Bradford? dominates the skyline for miles and miles - fantastic stuff
― chris (chris), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:56 (twenty years ago) link
http://mimezine.com/~uhtu/2003.08/lr_marina_city.jpg
― Kerry (dymaxia), Friday, 16 April 2004 13:02 (twenty years ago) link
― chris (chris), Friday, 16 April 2004 13:03 (twenty years ago) link
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 16 April 2004 13:03 (twenty years ago) link
― hmmm (hmmm), Friday, 16 April 2004 13:07 (twenty years ago) link
i like the park hill building. the neighborhood of copenhagen i lived in had a bunch of apartment complexes that looked like that and i thought they were magnificent.
― Treeship, Thursday, 18 July 2013 14:01 (ten years ago) link
boston city hall is also awesome.
― Treeship, Thursday, 18 July 2013 14:02 (ten years ago) link
idk, i saw the le corbusier exhibit at MOMA recently and since then view concrete architecture as being very optimistic, and unabashed, about modernity, which i like.
― Treeship, Thursday, 18 July 2013 14:03 (ten years ago) link
i can't stand boston city hall. it screams inaccessible government bureaucracy to me, like it's on stilts that you can't climb up. like it's not meant for the public. all those offices look unreachable, the way it's narrower on the ground floors and gets wider towards the top, it just tells me that i shouldn't waste me time trying to approach it because i can't. i tried to register my car there once and it took like 15 minutes trying to find the appropriate entrance.
― marcos, Thursday, 18 July 2013 14:15 (ten years ago) link
*my time
here's another view
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Boston_City_Hall.JPG
― marcos, Thursday, 18 July 2013 14:16 (ten years ago) link
it seems so weird and ugly and unsure of itself, though, especially compared to the more conservative-looking architecture that surrounds it. it's almost the opposite of intimidating to me.
― Treeship, Thursday, 18 July 2013 14:19 (ten years ago) link
7/8 of the problem with Boston City Hall is the brick hellscape around it, IMO.
Lawrence Halprin - that is how Brutalist landscape is done. Such a fascinating figure, total ILM-bait - him and his wife Ann were tight with Berio, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, the Fluxus types (and their daughter starred in Zabriskie Point!). But he's somehow also a bridge to Project for Public Spaces colored-pencil-rendering banalitude - one of a few translating Happenings into team-building wilderness exercises.
If his "concrete harmonizes surprisingly well w/ wild greenery" to Contendo, it's not from happy juxtaposition - it's that he was that he figured out how to make those forms (horrors!) mimetic, credibly transporting swimming holes into the urban public realm. Very kitschy guy but somehow a total hero.
― bentelec, Friday, 19 July 2013 01:46 (ten years ago) link
http://www.altaplana.be/_media/dossiers/darius/pyramiddatepalms.jpg
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Friday, 19 July 2013 12:58 (ten years ago) link
If his "concrete harmonizes surprisingly well w/ wild greenery" to Contendo, it's not from happy juxtaposition - it's that he was that he figured out how to make those forms (horrors!) mimetic, credibly transporting swimming holes into the urban public realm.
that's true in the case of halprin, but i was talking about this sort of concrete architecture in general. tbh, i frequently dislike it in an urban environment devoid of greenspace. in that context, as its critics say, it often does seem oppressive, inhumane, and just plain ugly. a green & growing environment gives the forms & material chance to exert contrast and texture, enhancing the style's most idealistic qualities. imo.
― IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Friday, 19 July 2013 13:25 (ten years ago) link
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7094/7165659014_9bfd890950.jpg
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 19 July 2013 22:20 (ten years ago) link
The Clancy Real Estate Group office in Phoenix.
http://joeorman.shutterace.com/Bizarre/bizarre_pyramidoncentral1.jpg
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 19 July 2013 22:24 (ten years ago) link
Awesome.
― it itches like a porky pine sitting on your dick (Phil D.), Friday, 19 July 2013 22:26 (ten years ago) link
Sunkist building, Sherman Oaks, CA (LA)http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site200/2013/0331/20130331_123249_do01%20sunkist%20building%20sherman%20oaks.jpg
Soon to be re-purposed, I believe.
― nickn, Friday, 19 July 2013 22:56 (ten years ago) link
Kerr Hall, UCSB
This is the first concrete building I'm aware of experiencing (1975), and I loved it. The surface reminded me or corderoy.
http://farm1.staticflickr.com/30/60577588_2c44f42577_z.jpg?zz=1
http://media7.troverapp.com/T/4e1f50d646dcf12800000020/large_2x.jpg
― nickn, Friday, 19 July 2013 23:09 (ten years ago) link
Pacific Mutual Building (now Pacific Life), Fashion Island/Newport Center, Newport Beach, CA.
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4087/4964251915_9f177f6cdb_z.jpg
Fashion Island (which we always called Fascist Island) was the nearest shopping mall to home, so I got to see this being built in 1971-72. Semi-scandal for conservative Orange County when it was finished. Cars would stop, people took photographs, etc.
I thought it was fantastic.
― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 20 July 2013 00:09 (ten years ago) link
beautiful photos, nickn
― IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Saturday, 20 July 2013 00:22 (ten years ago) link
This is like a bird watching checklist for some folks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_William_Pereira_buildings
― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 20 July 2013 00:25 (ten years ago) link
xpThanks, but I didn't take them. The building has a dramatic acute angle on one of the outside corners (like a wedge) but I couldn't find any pictures of that.
― nickn, Saturday, 20 July 2013 01:07 (ten years ago) link
Fendi has bought the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana. Even without the history, it's a strange, sinister building for reasons i've never quite been able to put my finger on.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11938018/Fendi-unveils-restored-Mussolini-building-as-its-headquarters-in-Rome.html
― Al Ain Delon (ShariVari), Friday, 23 October 2015 07:27 (eight years ago) link
it looks more like an aquaduct than a building and it gives me the same unsettling sense of emptiness you get in some of giorgio de chirico's paintings. being elevated heightens it
https://zoowithoutanimals.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/de-chirico_melancholia-1916.jpg
http://www.galleryintell.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Giorgio-de-Chirico_cropped.jpg
― ogmor, Friday, 23 October 2015 10:23 (eight years ago) link
Used to good effect in Taymor's Titus (1999):
http://youtu.be/t-TC2CxtVgw?t=5m17s
― Lust, etc. (Sanpaku), Friday, 23 October 2015 10:48 (eight years ago) link
It's a fascinating building - though we should note for the record that Mussolini would not have stood for exposed concrete here! That's all travertine, the new Rome and all that.
― Gorefest Frump (Doctor Casino), Friday, 23 October 2015 14:21 (eight years ago) link
New book and museum show explores mid-century Brutalism.
https://hyperallergic.com/427997/a-colossal-compendium-of-brutalist-architecture-argues-for-saving-our-concrete-monsters/
― nickn, Friday, 23 February 2018 23:10 (six years ago) link
I have a short piece in the catalog and a few photos in that and the affiliated conference proceedings, so I got an advance copy and I can say that it's gorrrrgeous, really well put together and I can't wait to have the time to actually read it all.
― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 24 February 2018 15:49 (six years ago) link
Anyone bought this?
https://www.waterstones.com/book/iconicon/john-grindrod/9780571348138
― djh, Saturday, 9 April 2022 15:05 (two years ago) link