This fall Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner 2049 was released as the long awaited sequel to the original 1982 film, and has since sparked much conversation around the film's architecture. There is no denying that Blade Runner 2049's construction was considerably influenced by Brutalist forms, but is the architecture really Brutalism?
Cinematographer Roger Deakins looked to London's Brutalist architecture to create his film, and director Denis Villeneuve said he wanted the "Brutalist feel" with severe concrete design.
While serving as inspiration to the filmmakers, Brutalism's core philosophy does not align with Blade Runner 2049 and its architecture. The extremely capitalist society and unpopulated scenes found within the film contradict the original socialist intentions of Brutalist architects whose focus was on material rawness and honesty in order to create the ideal form of dwelling.
Read the full essay by Alice Sweitzer and Charlie Clemoes on Failed Architecture.
3 Comments
Yes it is.
This reminded me of a thought I had the other day, Up until the early 1900's, visual arts-painting and sculpture, I don't think there was much more than that- and architecture, had progressed hand in hand and for every new "movement" in art there was a reflection in architecture; the last of which was the beaux arts movement, producing marvelous pieces of art deco, or art nouveau both in arts and architecture; but then, there was a break, surrealism! Can't quite build a surrealist building, right? So architects moved onto Modernism, and some artists followed, but the disconnection allowed for the disciplines to grow apart forever...
just a thought and yes, it is brutalist - I wish they had followed more of the FLLW aesthetics that were in the first movie.
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