Actually, Boston’s City Hall is a wonderful building, inside and out. And the use of red brick in the surrounding plaza, contrasting with the raw cement is the perfect accent. Then when you step inside the building, you have this soaring light filled lobby. And the core of the building has a large court yard, bathing the entire structure in natural light. The issue, the controversy is not over the building itself, but what was demolished to put it there, on that spot. The wholesale destruction of an entire neighborhood, the heart and soul of the city, Scollay Square. They did not merely knock down a few nice buildings, they turned it into Hiroshima. Nothing was left standing, even the street grid was erased to create “Government Center”.
When I was attending the U of Toronto, I always felt oppressed by the Robarts Library, as if it were a massive angry giant waiting to trample me as I walked down St George Street. Brutalist architecture is hard to warm up to.
Agreed ! Humans evolved in natural environments. Structures should blend with and compliment their natural surroundings and give an inviting feel. Fusion with the landscape, not impose upon it.
It looks like a massive angry turkey from street level. Even after the "update" it looks like a sci-fi prison. The UoT pool looks like it is out of 1960's Star Trek. Never went to UofT but I lived on Harboard.
@@LaurenceDay-d2p What's wrong with it? Looks like a typical 1970s office block (to a foreigner); neither an eyecandy nor an eyesore. I'd rather whine about the endless sea of glass facades built in the last 30 years all over Western Europe.
Being the internet, where strong feelings occur, I deeply loathe brutalist architecture. When I see a brutalist design, all I see is just soulless, lifeless monolithic blocks of endless concrete. The maximizing of function over form renders structures that look more in place in a former Soviet Union era city than Western cities.
Well, it's a western invention not soviet, french in fact, the name of the style stems from the french word for concrete, some of the greatest urbanists like le corbussier propagated it, and for the living, yeah no mass housing in the world was comparable in life quality with modernist buildings of the time. What soviets did of it was a reduction to bare minimums of living conditions and entire philosophy bar some display for propaganda buildings, the rest was trash, well not all of it, a lot of our, croatian firms built supreme accomodations, for their conditions, but those were for military officers housing or in closed cities for scientits and party officials..
I work in Boston. City Hall is polarizing. I love the building, but the brick desert around it is kind of awful and they destroyed some old neighborhoods to build it.
I typically see brutalist buildings as ugly pieces of propaganda whereby architects of the day seemingly tried to gaslight people into thinking that they were beautiful structures and something to be desired. They usually make me feel as if someone is forcing their opposing viewpoints on me. "You're going to eat this and like it!" Now, with that said, I will admit that the Geisel Library does look rather cool, even futuristic. I also like the round Hirshhorn Museum. Even though the exterior is mostly windowless, its simple curved shape invokes curiosity to see what's inside, unlike other brutalist forms which appear to say "keep out".
great selection!....mostly... especially the uncelebrated 55 west Wacker in Chicago , BUT your #1 is a short circuit (ugg) It should be the incomparable Boston City Hall.
Marina City (twin corn cob) concrete round towers should be #1. It is on many Brutalist list though some say a hybrid of sorts. Still far far far more Brutalist than somehow some Modernist aspects to be a hybrid. Next door the AMA (originally IBM) building is totally 100% Mies Van Der Rohe Modernist as a black not too shiny of a glass box. Irony is Bertrand Goldberg the Architect of Marina city.... was a student of Mies as part of the Chicago School of Architecture. That is another reason it for some list is not included as Brutalist.
I find a great deal of Brutalist architecture to be beautiful, especially when modernist or futurist elements are incorporated. Maybe it’s because I was born in the 1960s and many of these buildings were built during my early childhood, where I found them to represent the future and the space race/sci-fi aesthetic. I’ve visited several of these buildings just to walk around them and admire their beauty. I’ve visited a number of others, and I’ve even worked in one at the university I attended. My favorite on the list is one I’ve never seen in person, however - the Torres Blancas building. It is so beautiful! It reminds me of some of the architecture at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, which also fascinates me.
Brutalist architecture can be pretty awesome, even though I prefer more classical buildings. The only problem is: concrete doesn't age particularly well. Even after a decade or so these buildings look shabby. That's an advantage of more traditional buildings with plenty of ornaments; those embellishments serve to draw the eye away from imperfections on flat surfaces. Even the ancient Romans undeerstood that... one emperor got so sick of the lifeless gray concrete insulae (tenement blocks) that he required at least the ground floor walls to be clad in brick.
11:09 - - Long Lines Building - NYC 1:28 - - Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Sebastian - Rio 2:28 - - Geisel Library - San Diego 6:03 - - Robarts Library - Toronto 7:02 - - Torres Blancas - Madrid 9:27 - - Hirshhorn Museum - DC
Clearly one of the most magnificent redevelopment opportunities on God’s green earth for the new Classical and Traditional architects to work their magic as they already have in Robinson Plessis and countless other redevelopments of sub human collectivist post war socialist state experimental housing wrought upon the good people of Paris who had no other options! Vive Architecture Uprising!
@@sebber7992I assume you mean Habitat 67 - Montreal, Canada - looks just like the favelas you see in Rio although hopefully better built and with better sewage systems. Whole concept says a lot about the mindset of the architects - perhaps they should be condemned to live there for life!
5:35 Hey what a nice surprise! Last year I spent a night in the hotel in the background just to see two other architectural highlights of New Haven: The Ingalls Hockey Stadium and the parking at Temple Street. So if you stay in the Marcel Hotel you can walk there, it is not far away. Greetings from Munich, Germany!
The spectacular NCAR building in Boulder Colorado? Fascinating planes and angles on an almost Piet Mondrian artistic form set against the beauty of the Boulder Flat Irons and the Colorado front range. What's not to like?
Knowing 55 Wacker.... you must know Marina City across from it. It also is a concrete structure that does get on Brutalist list. Just for some.... it is a bit of a hybrid. Its concrete and building maintaining it has it always look smooth white and not aged as just common exposed concrete can get. NOT BLOCKY also is a part. Still other circular type concrete structures by its Architect - Bertrand Goldberg ..... Are seen as Brutalist. So if pretty for one that is at least more-or-less more Brutalist as if a hybrid of sorts as some claim.... Marina City is tops for best looking.
@@Kulumuli I'm also curious--and open to hearing a defense. The tricky part is--Brutalism can be good, but so often it's simply oppressive, as though the architects set out to make life onerous for all concerned. It took the worst rather than the best of Modernism and then made that even worse! I think of it as gratuitous agony imposed on the built environment.
Compared to contemporary glass boxes with minimalist look, with very standard detailing, no ornamentation brutalism holds more visual interest to me. In brutalism a structure is sometimes ornamentation of the building, sometimes you have art, mosaics, sculpture as part of architecture. Opposite to general belief that brutalist architecture is just grey, in brutalism colors are primary and denote a certain function of the building. Also if you would go to originally designed interior spaces of brutalist buildings they are rich in color and materials like wood, plaster, rough concrete, etc. To me brutalism reminds me in a weird way of gothic style (which I also love). If you compare it to music brutalism would be like techno while classical architecture is like classical concert- it’s a product of a completely different time and place
@@BuildingTales How is the famous German flak towers not on the list? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_tower After all, it was Adolf Hitler, the designer of the German flak towers, who invented brutalism. All these structures on your list just looks like copycats. The architects simply copied their role model.
I would say across from the Honorable Mention building of 55 Wacker Dr. and across the Chicago river is the Twin (corn-cob) Towers of Marina City. It is still basically a exposed concrete building and included as Brutalist in many list. Some claim coming thru the Chicago School and Modernist aspects it's a hybrid of sorts. Still, most see it fits for Brutalist as are other structures by the Architect - Bertrand Goldberg who was a student of the Father of Modernism - Mies Van Der Rohe. Irony has Mies black glass box next door is a iconic Modernist building vs Goldberg's YES MORE BRUTALIST. So for MOST BEAUTIFUL BRUTALIST BUILDINGS.... Still, Chicago's "Marina City" should be at 1. It clearly is the most LIKED one by most who see it vs the rest. One link that came up including it is titled - Brutalist Design Is Having a Moment-Here's Why. Clearly Marina Towers made this Brutalist list.
And yet, there are many more very nice examples, not well known, but just as nice. For example, the Terneuzen city hall (Terneuzen, Zeeland, Netherlands), or the Delft University of Technology Aula building (Delft, Netherlands). It's very hard to rate buildings, since 'most beautiful' is something one cannot measure.
First time (consciously) experiencing a brutalist building was the church in Nazareth. Shocking and depressing at the same time. I have been to churches, mosques, synagogues, temples from many varieties of religion, from many centuries, in many countries. ALL signaling light, beauty and glory to share with you, if you join. The church in Nazareth just signals "You are much smaller than you thought. Get out of here, before I crush you!" Somebody abused the political weakness of the times in the area to plant it in total disregard of people living there.
live in san diego, the ucsd library is amazing in person and has great views, the whole campus has brutalist architecture new and old. and san diego as a whole has alot of new brutalist modern architecture
I watched the Geisel Library being built at UCSD/LJ in the late 60's, the surroundings were dirt and a few eucalyptus trees. The design was cool but very inefficient, with some levels being very small. Good video.
I recall that the architect of the UCSD library claimed that he was inspired by the architecture of trees, and that analysis showed that this form yielded the most square footage (useful for a library!) for a given number/size of structural support beams. Whether the claim is valid or not, I don't know. For me, it's top of the Building Tales list, because it's the least brutal and most individual of the choices. (The facts that it has the most glass and liveliest contours help a lot.)
As a side note, Marcel Breuer’s surname is pronounced “Broyer”. I am enjoying your videos. My father was an architect and I appreciate your coverage of this art.
hi there, san franciscan here, just need to say that it’s a crime you didn’t include the transamerica pyramid on this list! i also would put SF’s glen park BART subway station on it as well. seattle’s freeway park is nice too though it’s a shame that downtown seattle is otherwise an unwelcoming mess these days. at any rate, love your channel, and agree that brutalism can absolutely be beautiful. cheers.
Great production. Not sure I'll ever grow to appreciate Brutalist. Cold , impersonal and unwelcoming, reminds me of dystopian movies like Blade Runner.
They lead to such work as "A Clockwork Orange". The buildings are practical, yes, but they look like any other heavy duty practical use structures. Built on this scale they come across looking like prisons. At least paint the bloody things.
There was a brutalist or pre-brutalist church in Southend-on-sea, UK. It was called St. Irkenwald's, built of red brick and absolutely fascinated me as a child. Unfortunately, powers that be decided it should be demolished. Which, quite frankly, was criminal.
I live in Massachusetts and have always liked Boston City Hall. What I never liked - is the large wind-swept brick plaza that surrounds it. They recently tried to improve it with a few million dollars. It's an improvement, but not by much.
@@BuildingTales Stainless steel or bronze cladding would be better than the brick they used for those large rectangular bunkers they built around the base.
Brutalism is not my bag, but I've always had a soft spot for Toronto's Robarts Library. There's a lot of angles, detail and texture to keep the eye engaged.
0:40 Anyone know what the name of that long curved building in the background is? 11:41 Also, the name of that slim skyscraper on the right side of the screen?
10:57 I commend you for your insight. The variety demonstrated by this clashing juxtaposition represents a healthy and diverse cityscape. The towers on either side of 55 W. Wacker are indeed taller, but they're also cold, glass blocks. In contrast, 55 looks comparatively more warm with its concrete and stone composition. The height variety also allows for more daylight to penetrate to the ground floor streets preventing the area from seeming so claustrophobic. Homogeny can be desirable, but absolute homogeny in the environment feels soul crushing and can even contribute to negative mental health and wellbeing. My favorite architecture style is Art Deco, but a city composed exclusively of Art Deco towers would actually detract from the uniqueness and beauty of each individual building. This is why I'll always defend Brutalism not only from an historical perspective but also from an aesthetic one too.
You said the Robarts library holds ten million books but you forgot to mention how many prisoners it holds. Nonetheless, despite my despisement of brutalism, your video was well done and I watched to the end.
You could honestly probably have at least three other buildings from New Haven. The Knights of Columbus Building, the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and the Yale School of Architecture.
Aside from aestetics, the main issue with brutalist buildings is maintenance. The resilience of pre-cast concrete was rather overestimated especially by early brutalist architects, and combined with the lack of ornamentation and hence large exposed surfaces it causes buildings to look derelict quite early and easily. What further complicates matters is that architects will often block low-cost, sustainable preservation measures such as coating or painting these surfaces, let alone more fundamental changes to solve structural issues (concrete rot, anyone?). This is partly the consequence of a somewhat justified fear of fundamentally damaging the design, but usually also founded in ideology. Brutalism goes hand in hand with socialist utopianism, with architects who re-invented themselves as artists and the - extremely defensive - guardians of the movement during the 20th century. Therefore, any discussion quickly turns poltiical, personal, and unproductive. For all these reasons, most brutalist buildings are exceedingly expensive to maintain properly. The results of improper maintenance can be seen all over the more distopian suburbs of London and the Paris banlieue.
An honourable mention could have gone to the English National Theatre, in London. King Charles (when he was Prince Charles) once called the building 'a monstrous carbuncle'; and likened it to a Nuclear Power Station!
The true measure of a building is how it is viewed 20, 50, 100 years on. The Royal National Theatre is still a monstrous carbuncle. People that visit London don't go there to see buildings like this or get their taken in front of them. It's a shame that so many of these brutalist monstrosities have been listed.
Should be top 5 of any ranked list. And it's so elegant in proportions, sculptural qualities, etc. that it would convert half of self professed brutalist haters. Problem is that so few see the building in person, and RUclips ranked lists always preference better known buildings in large cities.
If you ever get a chance Atlanta has a couple of Brutalist masterpieces, the man library was one of Marcel Breur last buildings. It was always seen as block and cumbersome, but the interior with it's inner courtyards and big windows had a skurprising open airy, light interior. It was just remodeled amid much controversy they mainly just punched a couple of windows in to open it up more. Then Paul Rudolphs Emory Univ. Chapel is considered an incredibly successful spiritual space.
For any architecture geeks out there, check out the former HQ of the Deutsche Bahn in Frankfurt am Main. It's from Böhm the Younger, if you will. The thing is scary. Organic in an alien way.
Please add my college dorm, Watterson Towers at Illinois State University. In the 80s it was the largest dorm in the world but now just the largest in the US. 26 floors in 2 towers with elevators only stopping on every 5th floor. Only 2 elevators until 1989 leaving walkways open. Now has 4 more elevators on back but still only stopping on every 5th floor. Houses up to 2500 students.
I absolutely love your channel. I am a fairly new subscriber and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite channels. Thank you so much for the content. I know this may sound like a weird video suggestion. Have you ever considered doing videos on apartments, schools, and libraries. I know there are a few Carnegie libraries left around the country. Another architecture that has always fascinated me is. County courthouses. My wife is a high school teacher in high school architecture has always fascinated me as well and school architecture in general. Again, these are just merely suggestions. Nothing more nothing less. Keep up the great work. I will be here regardless. I just wanted to throw out some ideas so you could possibly consider them that’s all. I hope you have a great rest of your day and enjoy your weekend.🇺🇸⭐️
Have you seen Park Hill Flats Sheffield England listed by English Heritage as the best example of Streets in the Sky. Built in the 1960s and abandoned in the 1990s it has now been totally refurnished and now stands as a 21st Century monument to Sheffield’s brutalist housing projects
The most beautiful brutalist building will always be in my opinion, St. John's Abbey Church in Collegeville, Minnesota by Marcel Breuer build around 1960. When you walk up the isle to the front of the church before the steps to the alter and turn around to see that massive conflagration of honeycombed stained glass, it steels your breath away...
Boston is a center of Brutalist architecture. Check out the book, "Heroic- Concrete Architecture and the New Boston" (2015, The Monacelli Press). One of my favorites is the Christian Science Center, by Araldo Cossutta in I.M. Pei's office (master plan).
Those large openings at the top of the AT&T long lines building held large microwave antennas back in the day. Just like you would see at the top of those big freestanding towers all over the country. Before the extensive fiber optic network, phone calls were sent all over by microwave radio relays.
BCH is freezing cold and drafty in the winter, and in the summer, the acres of brick concourse surrounding it are unbearably hot. None of it was really designed for humans. It's so far ahead of its time that it was designed for robots.
If you like brutalism buildings I can suggest you 2 in Argentina from Clorindo Testa, the "Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno" and the "Banco de Londres y América del Sur" now "Banco Hipotecario".
in my experience when i studied, most people hate on brutalism in architecture have zero probs with the most ugliest mall, supermarket, and whatnot architecture or housings made by profit only oriented construction companies imaginable.
That Metro Cathedral is very cool. A very strange brutalist building is the Seattle-Tacoma airport parking structure, only problem is getting around in that thing is bit of a mess but it is an odd structure.
The Geisel library is a failure for a completely different reason. The architect did not account for the weight of the books when designing the building. So when they move the books in, the building started to sink. They had to take the books out and use the building for something else.
??? Last time I was in it (about a year ago), it was as full of books as ever. Its limitation as a library was that it was planned for the then-current number of books in the university collection -- not even counting those already in the then-Humanities Library and Science & Engineering Library on the Revelle campus. As the collection grew, the need for space led to the subterranean Geisel extension -- and, of course, to off-site storage for infrequently accessed volumes.
Actually, Boston’s City Hall is a wonderful building, inside and out. And the use of red brick in the surrounding plaza, contrasting with the raw cement is the perfect accent.
Then when you step inside the building, you have this soaring light filled lobby. And the core of the building has a large court yard, bathing the entire structure in natural light.
The issue, the controversy is not over the building itself, but what was demolished to put it there, on that spot. The wholesale destruction of an entire neighborhood, the heart and soul of the city, Scollay Square. They did not merely knock down a few nice buildings, they turned it into Hiroshima. Nothing was left standing, even the street grid was erased to create “Government Center”.
Next week: Top 10 pleasantest infectious diseases.
😂😂
That's not even a word.
*most pleasant illiterate philistine
@@sandersson2813 "pleasantest"?
it is now!
Typhoid at #1, no doubt.
Thought The Barbican Centre, Europe's tallest residential blocks at the time, would make the cut
What a great list! Thank you!
Thanks!
When I was attending the U of Toronto, I always felt oppressed by the Robarts Library, as if it were a massive angry giant waiting to trample me as I walked down St George Street. Brutalist architecture is hard to warm up to.
Brutalist architecture is only appropriate for prisons and fortresses.
Agreed ! Humans evolved in natural environments. Structures should blend with and compliment their natural surroundings and give an inviting feel. Fusion with the landscape, not impose upon it.
It looks like a massive angry turkey from street level. Even after the "update" it looks like a sci-fi prison. The UoT pool looks like it is out of 1960's Star Trek. Never went to UofT but I lived on Harboard.
@@ians3586 Weird take on prisons...
@@HelleKurstein okay, how about this: Even for criminals brutalist architecture is cruel and unusual punishment.
You should take a look at Louis Kahn’s National Assembly building in Bangladesh. It would definitely be on my top 10 list.
Thanks for the suggestion!
I expected the Barbican here, I thought it was an example of Brutalist done right and being successful. But still a solid list!
same... kinda disappointed it did not make the list. In my opinion the barbican estates is the peak of brutalist city planning.
This is like finding a few good songs in a genre you don't fk with.
Very well put. Relatable.
The FBI HQ - Hoover Building is unforgivable. The fact that Ford’s Theater is in the next block raises irony to an art form.
Undoubtedly the most hideous building in Wash DC.
@@LaurenceDay-d2p What's wrong with it? Looks like a typical 1970s office block (to a foreigner); neither an eyecandy nor an eyesore. I'd rather whine about the endless sea of glass facades built in the last 30 years all over Western Europe.
I'm glad you have No. 5 the Robarts Library. I used to take people to see it back in the 80s.
Being the internet, where strong feelings occur, I deeply loathe brutalist architecture. When I see a brutalist design, all I see is just soulless, lifeless monolithic blocks of endless concrete.
The maximizing of function over form renders structures that look more in place in a former Soviet Union era city than Western cities.
I couldn't agree with you more.
Well, it's a western invention not soviet, french in fact, the name of the style stems from the french word for concrete, some of the greatest urbanists like le corbussier propagated it, and for the living, yeah no mass housing in the world was comparable in life quality with modernist buildings of the time.
What soviets did of it was a reduction to bare minimums of living conditions and entire philosophy bar some display for propaganda buildings, the rest was trash, well not all of it, a lot of our, croatian firms built supreme accomodations, for their conditions, but those were for military officers housing or in closed cities for scientits and party officials..
These buildings clearly don't maximize function over form. They are not simple rectangular buildings like cheap Soviet Union buildings.
I work in Boston. City Hall is polarizing. I love the building, but the brick desert around it is kind of awful and they destroyed some old neighborhoods to build it.
Dallas City hall is better.
The former Bank of London building and South America in Buenos Aires is an exquisite example of brutalism.
I typically see brutalist buildings as ugly pieces of propaganda whereby architects of the day seemingly tried to gaslight people into thinking that they were beautiful structures and something to be desired. They usually make me feel as if someone is forcing their opposing viewpoints on me. "You're going to eat this and like it!" Now, with that said, I will admit that the Geisel Library does look rather cool, even futuristic. I also like the round Hirshhorn Museum. Even though the exterior is mostly windowless, its simple curved shape invokes curiosity to see what's inside, unlike other brutalist forms which appear to say "keep out".
great selection!....mostly... especially the uncelebrated 55 west Wacker in Chicago , BUT your #1 is a short circuit (ugg) It should be the incomparable Boston City Hall.
Marina City (twin corn cob) concrete round towers should be #1. It is on many Brutalist list though some say a hybrid of sorts. Still far far far more Brutalist than somehow some Modernist aspects to be a hybrid. Next door the AMA (originally IBM) building is totally 100% Mies Van Der Rohe Modernist as a black not too shiny of a glass box. Irony is Bertrand Goldberg the Architect of Marina city.... was a student of Mies as part of the Chicago School of Architecture. That is another reason it for some list is not included as Brutalist.
Man, that's just brutal!
I find a great deal of Brutalist architecture to be beautiful, especially when modernist or futurist elements are incorporated. Maybe it’s because I was born in the 1960s and many of these buildings were built during my early childhood, where I found them to represent the future and the space race/sci-fi aesthetic.
I’ve visited several of these buildings just to walk around them and admire their beauty. I’ve visited a number of others, and I’ve even worked in one at the university I attended. My favorite on the list is one I’ve never seen in person, however - the Torres Blancas building. It is so beautiful! It reminds me of some of the architecture at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, which also fascinates me.
Brutalist architecture can be pretty awesome, even though I prefer more classical buildings. The only problem is: concrete doesn't age particularly well. Even after a decade or so these buildings look shabby. That's an advantage of more traditional buildings with plenty of ornaments; those embellishments serve to draw the eye away from imperfections on flat surfaces.
Even the ancient Romans undeerstood that... one emperor got so sick of the lifeless gray concrete insulae (tenement blocks) that he required at least the ground floor walls to be clad in brick.
Most of them are KLUNKIE. Yuck!
11:09 - - Long Lines Building - NYC
1:28 - - Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Sebastian - Rio
2:28 - - Geisel Library - San Diego
6:03 - - Robarts Library - Toronto
7:02 - - Torres Blancas - Madrid
9:27 - - Hirshhorn Museum - DC
Habitat 67 is a true masterpiece. Love the complex, love the setting. Magnificent.
Clearly one of the most magnificent redevelopment opportunities on God’s green earth for the new Classical and Traditional architects to work their magic as they already have in Robinson Plessis and countless other redevelopments of sub human collectivist post war socialist state experimental housing wrought upon the good people of Paris who had no other options! Vive Architecture Uprising!
Looks like shanty town from afar. That color doesnt help at all.
@@sebber7992I assume you mean Habitat 67 - Montreal, Canada - looks just like the favelas you see in Rio although hopefully better built and with better sewage systems. Whole concept says a lot about the mindset of the architects - perhaps they should be condemned to live there for life!
-Ralph Wiggum
5:35 Hey what a nice surprise! Last year I spent a night in the hotel in the background just to see two other architectural highlights of New Haven: The Ingalls Hockey Stadium and the parking at Temple Street. So if you stay in the Marcel Hotel you can walk there, it is not far away. Greetings from Munich, Germany!
The spectacular NCAR building in Boulder Colorado? Fascinating planes and angles on an almost Piet Mondrian artistic form set against the beauty of the Boulder Flat Irons and the Colorado front range. What's not to like?
Brunswick Centre, near Russell Square in London.
....also the English National Theatre on the South Bank; and Alexandra Road Housing Estate, Camden - both in London.
55 Wacker in Chicago should have been number one. I also love the San Diego Library. I loved the list. Subscribed!
Knowing 55 Wacker.... you must know Marina City across from it. It also is a concrete structure that does get on Brutalist list. Just for some.... it is a bit of a hybrid. Its concrete and building maintaining it has it always look smooth white and not aged as just common exposed concrete can get. NOT BLOCKY also is a part. Still other circular type concrete structures by its Architect - Bertrand Goldberg ..... Are seen as Brutalist.
So if pretty for one that is at least more-or-less more Brutalist as if a hybrid of sorts as some claim.... Marina City is tops for best looking.
Oof, the hate for brutalism makes me so sad. It's my favorite style of architecture. Thank you for another great video!
But why do you love brutalist architecture? What does it do to you that for example classical architecture don't? I'm curious.
@@Kulumuli I'm also curious--and open to hearing a defense.
The tricky part is--Brutalism can be good, but so often it's simply oppressive, as though the architects set out to make life onerous for all concerned. It took the worst rather than the best of Modernism and then made that even worse! I think of it as gratuitous agony imposed on the built environment.
Compared to contemporary glass boxes with minimalist look, with very standard detailing, no ornamentation brutalism holds more visual interest to me. In brutalism a structure is sometimes ornamentation of the building, sometimes you have art, mosaics, sculpture as part of architecture. Opposite to general belief that brutalist architecture is just grey, in brutalism colors are primary and denote a certain function of the building. Also if you would go to originally designed interior spaces of brutalist buildings they are rich in color and materials like wood, plaster, rough concrete, etc. To me brutalism reminds me in a weird way of gothic style (which I also love). If you compare it to music brutalism would be like techno while classical architecture is like classical concert- it’s a product of a completely different time and place
@@Kulumuli It does away with lots of fluff, that adds to cost and upkeep, without any function.
@@SiqueScarface Brutalism works great for robots. But we are human.
Number one is the inspiration for The Oldest House, a supernatural building in the video game "Control".
No barbican? Tut tut tut
Didn't know about that one, but now that I see it, it was definitely deserving of a spot on the list!
@@BuildingTales ye the Barbican is my favourite building
@@BuildingTales How is the famous German flak towers not on the list?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_tower
After all, it was Adolf Hitler, the designer of the German flak towers, who invented brutalism. All these structures on your list just looks like copycats. The architects simply copied their role model.
The architect that designed Habitat is Moshe Safdie.
Torres Blancas in Madrid is definitely the best brutal building in Europe
I would say across from the Honorable Mention building of 55 Wacker Dr. and across the Chicago river is the Twin (corn-cob) Towers of Marina City. It is still basically a exposed concrete building and included as Brutalist in many list. Some claim coming thru the Chicago School and Modernist aspects it's a hybrid of sorts.
Still, most see it fits for Brutalist as are other structures by the Architect - Bertrand Goldberg who was a student of the Father of Modernism - Mies Van Der Rohe. Irony has Mies black glass box next door is a iconic Modernist building vs Goldberg's YES MORE BRUTALIST.
So for MOST BEAUTIFUL BRUTALIST BUILDINGS.... Still, Chicago's "Marina City" should be at 1. It clearly is the most LIKED one by most who see it vs the rest.
One link that came up including it is titled - Brutalist Design Is Having a Moment-Here's Why. Clearly Marina Towers made this Brutalist list.
And yet, there are many more very nice examples, not well known, but just as nice. For example, the Terneuzen city hall (Terneuzen, Zeeland, Netherlands), or the Delft University of Technology Aula building (Delft, Netherlands). It's very hard to rate buildings, since 'most beautiful' is something one cannot measure.
There are definitely lots of cool ones!
First time (consciously) experiencing a brutalist building was the church in Nazareth. Shocking and depressing at the same time. I have been to churches, mosques, synagogues, temples from many varieties of religion, from many centuries, in many countries. ALL signaling light, beauty and glory to share with you, if you join. The church in Nazareth just signals "You are much smaller than you thought. Get out of here, before I crush you!" Somebody abused the political weakness of the times in the area to plant it in total disregard of people living there.
live in san diego, the ucsd library is amazing in person and has great views, the whole campus has brutalist architecture new and old. and san diego as a whole has alot of new brutalist modern architecture
I watched the Geisel Library being built at UCSD/LJ in the late 60's, the surroundings were dirt and a few eucalyptus trees. The design was cool but very inefficient, with some levels being very small. Good video.
I recall that the architect of the UCSD library claimed that he was inspired by the architecture of trees, and that analysis showed that this form yielded the most square footage (useful for a library!) for a given number/size of structural support beams. Whether the claim is valid or not, I don't know. For me, it's top of the Building Tales list, because it's the least brutal and most individual of the choices. (The facts that it has the most glass and liveliest contours help a lot.)
As a side note, Marcel Breuer’s surname is pronounced “Broyer”. I am enjoying your videos. My father was an architect and I appreciate your coverage of this art.
hi there, san franciscan here, just need to say that it’s a crime you didn’t include the transamerica pyramid on this list! i also would put SF’s glen park BART subway station on it as well. seattle’s freeway park is nice too though it’s a shame that downtown seattle is otherwise an unwelcoming mess these days. at any rate, love your channel, and agree that brutalism can absolutely be beautiful. cheers.
Great production. Not sure I'll ever grow to appreciate Brutalist. Cold , impersonal and unwelcoming, reminds me of dystopian movies like Blade Runner.
They lead to such work as "A Clockwork Orange". The buildings are practical, yes, but they look like any other heavy duty practical use structures. Built on this scale they come across looking like prisons. At least paint the bloody things.
There was a brutalist or pre-brutalist church in Southend-on-sea, UK. It was called St. Irkenwald's, built of red brick and absolutely fascinated me as a child. Unfortunately, powers that be decided it should be demolished. Which, quite frankly, was criminal.
I live in Massachusetts and have always liked Boston City Hall. What I never liked - is the large wind-swept brick plaza that surrounds it. They recently tried to improve it with a few million dollars. It's an improvement, but not by much.
Yea I kinda agree ... I like the exposed concrete look, but once they start combining the brick and the exposed concrete it does look a little odd
@@BuildingTales Stainless steel or bronze cladding would be better than the brick they used for those large rectangular bunkers they built around the base.
Sadly the sculpture garden in DC has been totally removed at present. But they will install something new soon.
I also wanted to mention firehouse architecture might be a neat topic to do a video on as well.
The Lecture Centre at Brunel University in London is worth a mention, with bonus points for featuring in "A Clockwork Orange".
Brutalism is not my bag, but I've always had a soft spot for Toronto's Robarts Library. There's a lot of angles, detail and texture to keep the eye engaged.
Robarts library was first revealed to me thanks to Star Trek. Truly beautiful
The fact that people complain about the Boston City Hall, and not about any of the about a dozen featureless boxes that surround it is telling.
0:40 Anyone know what the name of that long curved building in the background is?
11:41 Also, the name of that slim skyscraper on the right side of the screen?
0:40 is the center plaza building in Pemberton square
@@miramuchachito296 thanks
The slim skyscraper is 56 Leonard Street (aka the Jenga Tower)
@@mikenorman2525 thanks
10:57 I commend you for your insight. The variety demonstrated by this clashing juxtaposition represents a healthy and diverse cityscape. The towers on either side of 55 W. Wacker are indeed taller, but they're also cold, glass blocks. In contrast, 55 looks comparatively more warm with its concrete and stone composition. The height variety also allows for more daylight to penetrate to the ground floor streets preventing the area from seeming so claustrophobic.
Homogeny can be desirable, but absolute homogeny in the environment feels soul crushing and can even contribute to negative mental health and wellbeing. My favorite architecture style is Art Deco, but a city composed exclusively of Art Deco towers would actually detract from the uniqueness and beauty of each individual building. This is why I'll always defend Brutalism not only from an historical perspective but also from an aesthetic one too.
MIT's Landau Building (building 66) designed by I.M.Pei deserves a mention.
Great video. Again, I want to look up the buildings and the architects. Good job.
Fun fact about #4 Trellick Tower in London, it's so abhorant that it inspired the creation of the villain Goldfinger from the James Bond movies.
Sadly untrue. It wasn’t built until 1972.
Is it next door to MI6?
You said the Robarts library holds ten million books but you forgot to mention how many prisoners it holds. Nonetheless, despite my despisement of brutalism, your video was well done and I watched to the end.
Thanks!
I figured beautiful brutalist buildings would be a very short video. However, you did find some nifty buildings.
Thanks! Glad you found it interesting
Like living on the set of A Clockwork Orange. Graffiti is an improvement.
Nope.
You could honestly probably have at least three other buildings from New Haven. The Knights of Columbus Building, the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and the Yale School of Architecture.
Aside from aestetics, the main issue with brutalist buildings is maintenance. The resilience of pre-cast concrete was rather overestimated especially by early brutalist architects, and combined with the lack of ornamentation and hence large exposed surfaces it causes buildings to look derelict quite early and easily. What further complicates matters is that architects will often block low-cost, sustainable preservation measures such as coating or painting these surfaces, let alone more fundamental changes to solve structural issues (concrete rot, anyone?). This is partly the consequence of a somewhat justified fear of fundamentally damaging the design, but usually also founded in ideology. Brutalism goes hand in hand with socialist utopianism, with architects who re-invented themselves as artists and the - extremely defensive - guardians of the movement during the 20th century. Therefore, any discussion quickly turns poltiical, personal, and unproductive. For all these reasons, most brutalist buildings are exceedingly expensive to maintain properly. The results of improper maintenance can be seen all over the more distopian suburbs of London and the Paris banlieue.
i saw #10 last week! I also like Les Trois Tours in Grenoble, France
South Africa has many of these brutalist buildings, especially in its universities.
An honourable mention could have gone to the English National Theatre, in London. King Charles (when he was Prince Charles) once called the building 'a monstrous carbuncle'; and likened it to a Nuclear Power Station!
The true measure of a building is how it is viewed 20, 50, 100 years on. The Royal National Theatre is still a monstrous carbuncle. People that visit London don't go there to see buildings like this or get their taken in front of them. It's a shame that so many of these brutalist monstrosities have been listed.
This is like a design brochure for a zombie apocalypse.
Just down the street from Boston city hall, the Hurley state office building.
Cool
I'd have loved to see the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY listed here. It's a beautiful jewel box designed by I.M. Pei - his first museum.
Should be top 5 of any ranked list. And it's so elegant in proportions, sculptural qualities, etc. that it would convert half of self professed brutalist haters. Problem is that so few see the building in person, and RUclips ranked lists always preference better known buildings in large cities.
If you ever get a chance Atlanta has a couple of Brutalist masterpieces, the man library was one of Marcel Breur last buildings. It was always seen as block and cumbersome, but the interior with it's inner courtyards and big windows had a skurprising open airy, light interior. It was just remodeled amid much controversy they mainly just punched a couple of windows in to open it up more. Then Paul Rudolphs Emory Univ. Chapel is considered an incredibly successful spiritual space.
Anyone know name, location, or architect of building at 0:16?
Boston City Hall is vaguely reminiscent of the Dallas City Hall.
Great list. Thanks for your research and production of this. ❤
For any architecture geeks out there, check out the former HQ of the Deutsche Bahn in Frankfurt am Main. It's from Böhm the Younger, if you will. The thing is scary. Organic in an alien way.
5:21 compared to the IKEA it looks pretty good
Very true!
Please add my college dorm, Watterson Towers at Illinois State University. In the 80s it was the largest dorm in the world but now just the largest in the US. 26 floors in 2 towers with elevators only stopping on every 5th floor. Only 2 elevators until 1989 leaving walkways open. Now has 4 more elevators on back but still only stopping on every 5th floor. Houses up to 2500 students.
The Terrace on the Park in Queens, NY would fit in well with these choices.
I graduated from UCSD and used to spend a lot of time in Geisel. It is pretty cool. It has the Dr Seuss Museum also.
The SFU campus in Vancouver is a brutalist building that’s used in tv all the time. Should have included that.
I absolutely love your channel. I am a fairly new subscriber and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite channels. Thank you so much for the content. I know this may sound like a weird video suggestion. Have you ever considered doing videos on apartments, schools, and libraries. I know there are a few Carnegie libraries left around the country. Another architecture that has always fascinated me is. County courthouses. My wife is a high school teacher in high school architecture has always fascinated me as well and school architecture in general. Again, these are just merely suggestions. Nothing more nothing less. Keep up the great work. I will be here regardless. I just wanted to throw out some ideas so you could possibly consider them that’s all. I hope you have a great rest of your day and enjoy your weekend.🇺🇸⭐️
It's gone now, but the jail in Lexington KY looked like a six story bunker, like something the Germans built on the Jersey islands.
Fort Book was Covered in ivy as everyone in Toronto hates it
Have you seen Park Hill Flats Sheffield England listed by English Heritage as the best example of Streets in the Sky. Built in the 1960s and abandoned in the 1990s it has now been totally refurnished and now stands as a 21st Century monument to Sheffield’s brutalist housing projects
The most beautiful brutalist building will always be in my opinion, St. John's Abbey Church in Collegeville, Minnesota by Marcel Breuer build around 1960. When you walk up the isle to the front of the church before the steps to the alter and turn around to see that massive conflagration of honeycombed stained glass, it steels your breath away...
Happy to know some one can see the beauty of the brutelist architecture.
An oxymoron if I ever heard one!
Boston is a center of Brutalist architecture. Check out the book, "Heroic- Concrete Architecture and the New Boston" (2015, The Monacelli Press). One of my favorites is the Christian Science Center, by Araldo Cossutta in I.M. Pei's office (master plan).
Some real gems here!
Great video! 😊
#10 is straight out of Clockwork Orange
Those large openings at the top of the AT&T long lines building held large microwave antennas back in the day. Just like you would see at the top of those big freestanding towers all over the country. Before the extensive fiber optic network, phone calls were sent all over by microwave radio relays.
BCH is freezing cold and drafty in the winter, and in the summer, the acres of brick concourse surrounding it are unbearably hot. None of it was really designed for humans. It's so far ahead of its time that it was designed for robots.
That's one way to look at it!
I've always thought that Robarts Library looked like a giant concrete peacock.
If you like brutalism buildings I can suggest you 2 in Argentina from Clorindo Testa, the "Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno" and the "Banco de Londres y América del Sur" now "Banco Hipotecario".
I agree with you that the AT&T Long Lines building is a great building.
A lot of the buildings at UCSD are Brutalist architecture.
The Robarts Library has one whimsical exterior element -- from the front it looks like a peacock.
The Carlton Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa is brutalism at full throttle. We have several Brutalist buildings in the city.
the brutalist hate remains strong i see (in the comments)
It will always be strong.
in my experience when i studied, most people hate on brutalism in architecture have zero probs with the most ugliest mall, supermarket, and whatnot architecture or housings made by profit only oriented construction companies imaginable.
Some of these are great, others less so. Habitat was fantastic. I would also include the National Theatre in London.
St. Frances de Sales church, McCracken Street, Norton Shores, Michigan.
That Metro Cathedral is very cool. A very strange brutalist building is the Seattle-Tacoma airport parking structure, only problem is getting around in that thing is bit of a mess but it is an odd structure.
Top 10 opticians in your neighbourhood...
City Hall is the most detested building in Boston by a mile.
And Bostonians are just straight up wrong about it. It's awesome.
Check out photos of the now demolished Tricorn Centre in Portsmouth UK... that truly polarised opinion, but was demolished some years ago.
55 west wacker is so out of place next to all those beautiful towers.
Perhaps you could give credit to each of the architects.
These "architects" simply copied their role model: The "architect" who designed the famous Nazi flak towers. Adolf Hitler.
The Geisel library is a failure for a completely different reason. The architect did not account for the weight of the books when designing the building. So when they move the books in, the building started to sink. They had to take the books out and use the building for something else.
??? Last time I was in it (about a year ago), it was as full of books as ever. Its limitation as a library was that it was planned for the then-current number of books in the university collection -- not even counting those already in the then-Humanities Library and Science & Engineering Library on the Revelle campus. As the collection grew, the need for space led to the subterranean Geisel extension -- and, of course, to off-site storage for infrequently accessed volumes.