A Government minister has declared war on “brutalist” architecture, arguing that it is “aesthetically worthless” and embodies a “cult of ugliness”.
John Hayes, a transport minister, said in a speech that the Government would be the “vanguard of a renaissance” in architecture by rebuilding a Doric arch that stood outside London’s Euston station before it was demolished in 1962.
— The Independent
"Politicians speak a lot and sometimes they speak sense," the British Minister for Transport John Hayes states at the beginning of a speech that makes a case for a return to "beauty" in public architecture. Specifically, he takes aim at brutalist transit stations and promises to rebuild the Euston Arch, an 1837 Doric arch. "What a statement it will be of the revolt against the Cult of Ugliness, of our new orthodoxy," Mr. Hayes contends.
I highly recommend reading the speech. It's pretty out there (and a bit chilling to tell you the truth):
"My certain conviction is unwavering. We will beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly to new elegance, style and beauty."
Sure, you may very well agree with his sentiments, but can you really defend a public transport minister invoking the most cliché line in the Great Gatsby to make his point? Also, it should be noted that, when first erected, the Euston Arch was called by critics "gigantic and absurd", among other things.
More reports from post-Brexit UK:
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Sure, you may very well agree with his sentiments, but can you really defend a public transport minister invoking the most cliché line in the Great Gatsby to make his point?
Equating his call for beauty with having employed a cliché is telling how much resistance there is among architects. Serving the public, not telling them what they should like is the architect's responsibility. How refreshing to see this movement take off organically.
...and does so with a face only a mother could love.
This fellow obviously is suffering from Bell's Palsy, a neurological disorder which causes one side of your face to droop down. It's permanent, and although it's not life threatening, it changes your facial look. So when you come down with this someday, stourleyk, we'll all make sure to goof on your look.
Bravo to Mr. Hayes for his courage in taking a stand and speaking out.
In defense, one word:
Barbican!
Modernist architecture is a blight on our skylines across the entirety of the world. The sooner these abominations are brought down and replaced with visually pleasing forms, the better.
Thank you for the good health wishes, Erik!
As Erik said, this man pretty clearly has Bell's Palsy. Don't be a jerk, stourley. But I'm also a bit surprised that Archinect's editors would use that picture.
citizen that's gorgeous. Love it.
The thing that is ALSO beautiful to me about so much of the UK's Brutalist housing projects is they were the product of a time in which housing people was an enormous social imperative of the government. They're beautiful to me *because* they're evidence of a government trying to take care of their citizenry. We've learned from that experiment, but that doesn't mean those structures have to be torn down. They can still be valuable buildings, but used differently or with the addition of other social imperatives.
Some attribute the rise of brutalism to the building of the German Atlantik Wall before WWII. The chief architect of Organization Todt designed many of the bunkers that were built from Scandinavia to Spain. Several of these have been incorporated into other structures since, while many others just decay on the beaches.
DS, Hayes says in his speech that proponents of Brutalism are "soulless" and "stupid." That's the kind of courage that Spanish Colonial Revival mansions are built with.
I agree with you there, stourley, but that doesn't justify making fun of how *he* looks.
I have rosacea, which means I frequently have reddish angry-looking bumps on my nose. Should those bumps be brought up as a reason to question my dislike of Center Hall Colonials (the prissiest of house typologies)? The two aren't related.
God I hate Center Hall Colonials. Ugh.
He is a standard aesthetic conservative, which dovetails well into his political and cultural conservatism. It really is a pattern. Look into "aesthetic conservatism", or look up a guy named Roger Scruton. John Hayes' tendencies are nothing new.
In 2013, John Hayes also opposed the expansion of wind farms partly on aesthetic grounds. Its a very common position that you can easily find in the US along the east coast among aesthetic conservatives.
Do you seriously think there are going to be any wind farms built within sight of Martha's Vineyard or the Hamptons?
"He is a standard aesthetic conservative, which dovetails well into his political and cultural conservatism. It really is a pattern. Look into "aesthetic conservatism", or look up a guy named Roger Scruton. John Hayes' tendencies are nothing new. "
I don't understand how you can make these kind of unfounded generalizations. I have no idea whether there is a correlation between political conservatism and and aesthetic traditionalism. And unless you possess data from some kind of research on the matter, I imagine you don't either.
I can say in my experience of my design community, which covers many parts of the country, and a broad design spectrum from modernist to classicist, I can discern no correlation. This is anecdotal, but my experience is that most of my colleagues in the traditional design world tend to lean pretty strongly to the left. And my business partner, who is an exclusively modernist architect, is a political conservative. Go figure. I know this doesn't feed the narrative of traditional design as socially retrograde, but hey...
Volunteer-
See? That's just the thing. Every time I see brutalist architecture, I just can't get over associating it with pre-WWII German nationalism. It's forever stained. :)
what about this, for children? (see link, more to it)
THE BRUTALIST PLAYGROUND by Assemble
Erik,
You are not a traditionalist. You are indiscriminate. Theres a big difference. Traditionalists have serious philosophical reasons for their aesthetics. You don't.
While I loathe brutalism it is very interesting that nuclear shelters in Sweden and Switzerland are being repurposed as data centers. I'm not sure but there may be a message there.The two photos below are of the Bahnhof Center in a granite mountain near Stockholm. Two of the many servers here are leased to Wikileaks. The doors are sixteen inches of steel and there is 100 feet of granite overhead, Not too much for architects to do, but the interior architects have knocked it out of the park. Kind of makes the US Government's data center in Utah look like a beach taco stand by comparison with respect to security. Anyhow, thank God for Wikileaks.
N
David-
Are you saying that you don't think it's possible to believe in the philosophy of traditional architecture and be a political progressive? Or that it's inconsistent to be an aesthetic modernist and a political conservative?
He is a standard aesthetic conservative, which dovetails well into his political and cultural conservatism. It really is a pattern.
Are you kidding? How far into a hole must you live to not see how fallacious this is? I'm as liberal as they come (except for wanting to shrink the government) and I've always loved traditional architecture, because it makes me and many other people I know happy. Where, how, and why it might be appropriate are all intelligent questions, but it's like asking someone why they like harmonious music.
I had no idea that politics actually infected aesthetics to the degree it seems to, on both sides of the ledger. But the architectural experience has nothing to do with politics, unless one can't remember what life was like when your first category was human. That's just nuts.
My point is that John Hayes is an aesthetic conservative and a political conservative, and that those two aspects relate. And that relationship is something that many conservative thinkers have articulated already. I directed you to one good example of an academic who has worked to make that case from the conservative side.
You are arguing another point about the exceptions to that relationship. I agreed with you that the exceptions are something else. For lack of a better word, I called you (them) "indiscriminate". I don't know enough about you or the philosophical underpinnings of your work to really say what kind of exception you are. Perhaps you are subversive, as some Postmodernists were. Perhaps you're just a capitalist and you work to satisfy the whims of clients and make money, period. Perhaps you're able to juggle the theories and traditions of every style, and just jump from perspective to perspective, like an architectural Sam from Quantum Leap. I don't know. Feel free to share.
I can't say that any philsophical/political/aesthetic hybrid isn't possible. It's like saying today that there are no Muslim Trump supporters. I can't account for the exceptions. If we were to see a pattern, then we could examine it and speculate about why it exists.
Eclectic is not indiscriminate, far from it.
davvid,
If only life where that simple! Here's the liberal case for traditional architecture.
Due to the current climate crisis, mankind should be pulling away from nature to allow it to rebuild the resiliency humans depend on for their survival. The most obvious remedy is to build walkable cities surrounded by farm country . Traditional architecture is the architecture of the pedestrian, since it developed before the car. The pedestrian is the basis of any community where by face to face interactions allow for socialization and decrees feelings of social isolation that western societies seem to disproportionately have.
To that end, any and all tools that will make for more humane and resilient cities should be deployed, from transit oriented design to mixed use zoning and beauty, the kind that draw millions of tourists to the cherished cities of the world should be emulated. This has nothing to do with politics beyond the self imposed academic politics of modernism vs. traditionalism. As for government politics, history has shown just about every style and architectural ideology being at the service of both good and bad governments, so it's safe to say that any alignment with politics and architecture are somewhat arbitrary.
Beyond this, I actually have a philosophical underpinning for my work that I never thought I would need, but yes, politics are such that simply trying to do good isn't enough. I'd be happy to send it to you if you'd like.
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