This book reveals the origin, definition, and evolution of New Brutalism in architecture.
The New Brutalism movement in architecture addressed a new way of understanding the urban dimension in the post-war period, and in particular the role of the architect in an insecure society. But the original definition was manipulated, diluted, and fragmented as the concept spread from Europe to the United States, Japan, and South America. New Brutalism follows its contributions on a global scale, as it challenged the ambivalent collaboration between critics and architects and opened a controversial debate over a new “international style.” Disruptive, revolutionary, and at times even Dadaist, New Brutalism steered the cultural trajectory of the Modern Movement. A corrective to the many myths and misinterpretations of the style, this book reasserts the foundations of New Brutalism and offers a close examination of its international influence and variations.
The New Brutalism movement in architecture addressed a new way of understanding the urban dimension in the post-war period, and in particular the role of the architect in an insecure society. But the original definition was manipulated, diluted, and fragmented as the concept spread from Europe to the United States, Japan, and South America. New Brutalism follows its contributions on a global scale, as it challenged the ambivalent collaboration between critics and architects and opened a controversial debate over a new “international style.” Disruptive, revolutionary, and at times even Dadaist, New Brutalism steered the cultural trajectory of the Modern Movement. A corrective to the many myths and misinterpretations of the style, this book reasserts the foundations of New Brutalism and offers a close examination of its international influence and variations.
280 pages | 85 color plates | 8 1/4 x 10 3/4 | © 2023
Architecture: European Architecture, History of Architecture
Table of Contents
A GAME OF PATIENCE FOR A NEW ART HISTORY – ROBERTO GARGIANI
1. THE BRITISH DEBATE IN SEARCH OF A NEW-ISM
1.1. Reactions to the International Style and the Myth of the Pioneers of the Modern Movement
1.2. Principles of Truth: The Revival of Pugin, Ruskin and Morris
1.3. Roughness, Accident and Irregularity for a New Picturesque
1.4. New Humanism, New Empiricism, New Monumentality
1.5. The Functional Tradition for National Unification
1.6. The Neo-Palladianism of Wittkower and Rowe
2. LE CORBUSIER AND BÉTON BRUT
2.1. From ‘Béton Armé’ to ‘Béton Brut’ at the Unité in Marseille
2.2. Architecture d’Aujourd’hui and Art Brut
2.3. Le Point and the Concept of Béton Brut
2.4. The Humanism of Béton Brut
3. THE INVENTION OF A DEFINITION: FROM ASPLUND TO THE SMITHSONS
3.1. The First Brutalist Building: Villa Göth
3.2. The Unité as a Model for English Reconstruction
3.3. New Movement-Classical-Complex-Human
3.4. The Smithsons’ New Brutalism
3.5. Early Definitions of New Brutalism: Segal and the English Magazines
3.6. Johnson’s Anti-Design
3.7. Banham’s Radical Philosophy
3.8. Formalism, Roughness and Brutality
3.9. Smithsons’ Anti-Art Architecture for a New Aesthetic
3.10. New Brutalism Will Take Many Forms
3.11. The Case of the School at Hunstanton
3.12. Piranesi and Mies in Blake’s New Brutalism
3.13. Futuristic Connections for a ‘Mechanistic Brutalism’
3.14. Stirling and the Primitive Aesthetic, or the Maisons Jaoul Model
4. BANHAM’S MEMORABLE ARTICLE
4.1. A Category of the New Art History
4.2. The Origins in Le Corbusier’s Béton Brut
4.3. Early Brutalism
4.4. Anti-art and As Found: For ‘une Architecture Autre’
4.5. Wittkower, Rowe and the Anti-Brutalists
4.6. The Role of the Yale Art Gallery
4.7. Image, ‘Quod Visum Perturbat’
5. CRITICAL PRECISIONS: FROM SUMMERSON TO LASDUN
5.1. The Old Rigour according to Summerson
5.2. Le Corbusier’s Brutal Concrete, from Zevi to Scully
5.3. The Strict-Brutalists
5.4. Thoughts in Progress on the Brutalist Canon
5.5. The Smithsons’ Ethics
5.6. Style and Attitude
6. INTERNATIONAL BRUTALISM: FROM ZEVI TO JOEDICKE
6.1. Zevi and the First Italian Brutalist
6.2. Romantic, Informal, Naturalistic: Italian Variations
6.3. Premises for American Brutalism
6.4. The Carnegie Institute Student Questionnaire
6.5. Kallmann’s Action Architecture
6.6. Directions and Dilemmas beyond the International Style
6.7. Pevsner and Stirling vs. the Brutalist Aesthetics
6.8. The Essential Ethic of Brutalism Is in Town Building
6.9. Anti-Miesian Brutalism by Pehnt and Joedicke
7. THE NEW BRUTALISM: ETHIC OR AESTHETIC? BY JOEDICKE AND BANHAM
7.1. Joedicke’s Proposal for a Monograph on New Brutalism
7.2. Towards the Final Structure of the Book
7.3. Banham’s New Brutalism: From Materials to Ethics
7.4. Beyond Brutalism: ‘The Total Environment’
7.5. Brutalist Style
7.6. The Economist Building vs. Leicester University
8. THE SAD END OF NEW BRUTALISM
8.1. Pevsner and the Anti-Pioneers
8.2. New Brutalism’s Obituary
8.3. The Old Brutalism
8.4. The Smithsons’ Answer to Banham: Robin Hood Gardens
1. THE BRITISH DEBATE IN SEARCH OF A NEW-ISM
1.1. Reactions to the International Style and the Myth of the Pioneers of the Modern Movement
1.2. Principles of Truth: The Revival of Pugin, Ruskin and Morris
1.3. Roughness, Accident and Irregularity for a New Picturesque
1.4. New Humanism, New Empiricism, New Monumentality
1.5. The Functional Tradition for National Unification
1.6. The Neo-Palladianism of Wittkower and Rowe
2. LE CORBUSIER AND BÉTON BRUT
2.1. From ‘Béton Armé’ to ‘Béton Brut’ at the Unité in Marseille
2.2. Architecture d’Aujourd’hui and Art Brut
2.3. Le Point and the Concept of Béton Brut
2.4. The Humanism of Béton Brut
3. THE INVENTION OF A DEFINITION: FROM ASPLUND TO THE SMITHSONS
3.1. The First Brutalist Building: Villa Göth
3.2. The Unité as a Model for English Reconstruction
3.3. New Movement-Classical-Complex-Human
3.4. The Smithsons’ New Brutalism
3.5. Early Definitions of New Brutalism: Segal and the English Magazines
3.6. Johnson’s Anti-Design
3.7. Banham’s Radical Philosophy
3.8. Formalism, Roughness and Brutality
3.9. Smithsons’ Anti-Art Architecture for a New Aesthetic
3.10. New Brutalism Will Take Many Forms
3.11. The Case of the School at Hunstanton
3.12. Piranesi and Mies in Blake’s New Brutalism
3.13. Futuristic Connections for a ‘Mechanistic Brutalism’
3.14. Stirling and the Primitive Aesthetic, or the Maisons Jaoul Model
4. BANHAM’S MEMORABLE ARTICLE
4.1. A Category of the New Art History
4.2. The Origins in Le Corbusier’s Béton Brut
4.3. Early Brutalism
4.4. Anti-art and As Found: For ‘une Architecture Autre’
4.5. Wittkower, Rowe and the Anti-Brutalists
4.6. The Role of the Yale Art Gallery
4.7. Image, ‘Quod Visum Perturbat’
5. CRITICAL PRECISIONS: FROM SUMMERSON TO LASDUN
5.1. The Old Rigour according to Summerson
5.2. Le Corbusier’s Brutal Concrete, from Zevi to Scully
5.3. The Strict-Brutalists
5.4. Thoughts in Progress on the Brutalist Canon
5.5. The Smithsons’ Ethics
5.6. Style and Attitude
6. INTERNATIONAL BRUTALISM: FROM ZEVI TO JOEDICKE
6.1. Zevi and the First Italian Brutalist
6.2. Romantic, Informal, Naturalistic: Italian Variations
6.3. Premises for American Brutalism
6.4. The Carnegie Institute Student Questionnaire
6.5. Kallmann’s Action Architecture
6.6. Directions and Dilemmas beyond the International Style
6.7. Pevsner and Stirling vs. the Brutalist Aesthetics
6.8. The Essential Ethic of Brutalism Is in Town Building
6.9. Anti-Miesian Brutalism by Pehnt and Joedicke
7. THE NEW BRUTALISM: ETHIC OR AESTHETIC? BY JOEDICKE AND BANHAM
7.1. Joedicke’s Proposal for a Monograph on New Brutalism
7.2. Towards the Final Structure of the Book
7.3. Banham’s New Brutalism: From Materials to Ethics
7.4. Beyond Brutalism: ‘The Total Environment’
7.5. Brutalist Style
7.6. The Economist Building vs. Leicester University
8. THE SAD END OF NEW BRUTALISM
8.1. Pevsner and the Anti-Pioneers
8.2. New Brutalism’s Obituary
8.3. The Old Brutalism
8.4. The Smithsons’ Answer to Banham: Robin Hood Gardens