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Depending on the level of surreality you favor in your coloring book exercises, The Brutalist Colouring Book from Belgian graphic designer Marc Thomasset allows you to create wildly imaginative or strictly literal renderings of various famous brutalist landmarks, including works by William Pereira... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
At each elevation from the third through 17th floors, the floor plates in Bjarke Ingels Group's new Grove at Grand Bay rotate three feet, creating a twisting set of luxury residential towers that from the ground resemble the splayed bellows of dueling concrete accordions. Indeed, these 20-story... View full entry
In this thoughtful ode to the unexpected charms of brutalism, Felix Salmon explores why the formerly nightmarish architectural style is experiencing a renaissance, or at least a renewed appreciation. Salmon's observation that ubiquitous, unimaginative glass towers have replaced brutalism as the... View full entry
Protesters gathered in Sydney’s historic Rocks district on Saturday to rally against the New South Wales government’s plans to sell off the Sirius building – which contains 79 social housing tenants – to developers for more than $100m. The 1970s Brutalist building was nominated for heritage listing by the NSW National Trust in 2014 but the government has refused to grant it, saying the proceeds from the sale are needed to build more public housing elsewhere in Sydney — The Guardian
Quartz also reported that Australia’s largest construction union Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and the Unions NSW have called their members to refuse any participation in demolition work of the structure.“The Sirius building is not only an important piece of... View full entry
The UN's cultural organisation has listed 17 works by pioneering Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier as world heritage sites.
Le Corbusier spearheaded the modern movement after World War One, using iron, concrete and glass in a new focus on bold lines and functionality that did not appeal to everyone.
The sites are in seven countries.
— BBC News
17 of Le Corbusier's buildings, including Unité d’habitation in Marseille and the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo were announced as new UN world heritage sites. The 17 buildings meet three of the selection criteria for World Heritage status:(i) A masterpiece of human creative... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
The Economist Plaza was designed by Alison and Peter Smithson in the 1960s and still serves as a seminal example of an inviting and approachable urban space in Central London. The project is successful because it bravely addresses the clash between the aesthetic of the Smithsons and the... View full entry
Bowie hated it. Peep Show besmirched it. The London suburb may get a bad rap in popular culture, but now there is the chance to see a different side. [...]
Watson is helping to organise tours of Croydon taking in architectural highlights such as NLA House (now No 1 Croydon), sometimes known as the ‘threepenny bit’; [...]
The National Trust is turning to Croydon after its successful tours of London’s brutalist concrete buildings, places it argues should be cherished as much as Croydon’s towers.
— The Guardian
Brutalism will never happen again. Our stock of Brutalism is limited, and sadly under constant attack. The demolition and ‘refurbishment’ of great buildings by Rudolph, I M Pei, Denys Lasdun and other giants of the movement should be taken as seriously as would the loss of buildings by Donato Bramante, Christopher Wren or Frank Lloyd Wright. Brutalism deserves far better than the wrecker’s ball: it was the pinnacle of world architecture through all of history. — Aeon
Related stories in the Archinect news:#SOSBrutalism campaign lists endangered buildingsBrutal paper cut-outs (of real-life buildings)Brutalism's struggle to stay relevant: a few more buildings we lost in 2015 View full entry
Surfing on this social media hype, the German Architecture Museum (DAM) and the Wüstenrot Foundation have started using the hashtag #SOSBrutalism to make these buildings visible worldwide in order to contribute to saving those that are currently threatened.
"Brutalism represents an anti-attitude, an anti-idyll," says campaign co-initiator Philip Kurz, of the Wüstenrot Foundation. [...]
The German Architecture Museum also plans to create an exhibition next year based on its online campaign.
— dw.com
"Some 900 buildings - from London to Abidjan, from Tokyo to Caracas - are already documented on the website sosbrutalism.org. Among the structures featured in the database, some have already been demolished while others are currently endangered."Related stories in the Archinect news:Brutal paper... View full entry
Poland-based studio Zupagrafika has a thing for modernist and Brutalist architecture. And to share that passion, it has created playful illustrated paper cutout models of Brutalist buildings in London; modernist buildings in Warsaw; and a new series, Paris Brut, featuring Brutalist architecture from the 1950s–70s located in the city center and outlying banlieues. — Slate
Cheaper than a train set, more visceral than a video game: Zupagrafika's sets of the Les Choux de Creteil, the Cite des 4000, and the Orgues de Flandre (among others) will keep your fingers busy in assembly and your mind deeply engaged in the thorny issues surrounding the relative success and... View full entry
The greatest work of art at New Haven’s Yale Center for British Art is arguably the landmark building itself—and Louis Kahn’s last structure is due to reopen this month after a 16-month renovation of its public galleries and lecture hall, and an upgrade of its accessibility, security, mechanical and electrical systems. This is the third phase of a $33m conservation project that began in 2008. — theartnewspaper.com
"George Knight of Knight Architecture, who led the conservation work, says: “The thing that kept me up at night was [thinking] how can we preserve the building, which is so architecturally rich, and do all this surgery so as not to disfigure the patient in any way?""All images courtesy of the... View full entry
This week on the podcast, Donna, Ken and I discuss the uncertain future of downtown Atlanta's brutalist Public Library (the last building Marcel Breuer designed), how Shigeru Ban's relief efforts in Ecuador relate to his celebrity, and the emergence of a heavy-hitting lobbyist group for driverless... View full entry
The uncertainty looming over the building’s future is serving as a call to action for preservation groups in Atlanta and around the world who are beginning to mobilize. [...]
Ironically, to gain the Breuer building, Atlanta lost its original Carnegie Library. [...]
As evidenced by the transformation of the former Whitney Museum into the Met Breuer, it is clear that with a careful restoration, Breuer’s works can be an iconic piece of the urban fabric in which they reside
— artsatl.com
The Architecture and Design Center has begun a petition to protect the library, and has since garnered 1,023 signatures of 2,000 needed.The petition states: "We ask that the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System Board of Trustees take actions to protect the Central Library and Library System... View full entry