Has Brutalist Architecture Hit the Saturation Point?

Unpacking why the so-called blank-slate aesthetics associated with socialist architecture suddenly speaks to celebrities and consumers alike

As published in Architectural Digest, December 27, 2022

The entry of Abbott cofounder Jose Alvare’s historic loft in Williamsburg. Photo: Nick Glimenakis

Its name doesn’t inspire a sense of coziness, comfort, or even glamour, yet Brutalist architecture—the postwar style that pinned its hopes on the possibilities of poured concrete—seems to be back in the zeitgeist. Of course, it never really left: For decades, its detractors have been waging a war of attrition against its somewhat severe and aggressively modernist aesthetic with a policy tactic known as “active neglect.” Boston’s City Hall has been controversial since it was unveiled in 1968. (According to 99% Invisible producer emeritus Avery Trufelman, government officials chose to ignore the building, allowing it to gradually deteriorate, which has only served to make it less attractive and thus an object of more focused scorn.)

But staunch anti-brutalism may now itself be a period piece: architects, students, critics, and scholars alike are increasingly demonstrating growing admiration for the style. What was once described by August Journal editor Dung Ngo as “the Edward Scissorhands of architecture” is suddenly finding new appeal in the most unexpected of places. 

You might have recently noticed this shift in the home accessories aisles at your favorite stylish emporium. Concrete is having a moment, and brutalism is basking in the glow of its (admittedly muted) radiance. You’ll find smooth concrete side tables at West Elm; rugged outdoor fountains at Pottery Barn; concrete desks, lamps, and mirrors at CB2; and even Kim Kardashian has launched a line of concrete accessories as part of her Skkn By Kim line of personal care products, including a tissue box and vanity tray, all of which match the minimalist product packaging and the subdued aesthetic of Skkn offices. 

The SKKN by Kim product lineup includes a vanity tray, a round container, a canister, a tissue box, and a waste basket. Photo courtesy of SKKN by Kim

If it triggers a bit of cognitive dissonance to realize that Kardashian is the latest champion of the building material most closely associated with college dorms and apartment blocks that still dot the landscape of the former Soviet Union like gigantic and forlorn legos, it may help to think of brutalism’s history and what it symbolized when it debuted eight decades ago. Its name refers to the material that makes it possible: béton brut, which translates to “raw concrete.” Le Corbusier used cast concrete to build the Cité Radieuse apartment houses in Marseille (they were built between 1947 and 1952), and this launched a wave of modernist building projects around the world. The hope was that following the ravages of the Second World War, poured concrete would allow cities to build new housing cheaply and quickly, giving displaced people a decent place to live. 

You wouldn’t know it from how brutalist architecture seems to haunt the characters in films like Blade Runner or 1984, but when it was first embraced by the public, it was as optimistic a design intervention as the swooping arches and starbursts of the Atomic Age. Kate Wagner, the writer and creator behind the beloved site McMansion Hell, points out how science fiction movies still feature brutalist structures today, including the uncredited Yugoslavian monuments in Wakanda Forever.

Brian Goldstein, who teaches architectural history at Swarthmore College and specializes in buildings from the 1960s and ’70s, explains that much of the antipathy and love-hate sentiment directed at brutalist buildings stems from the history of failed utopias they came to represent—not just in Europe, but here in the US. “Brutalism was one of the major languages of urban renewal and urban redevelopment, and I do think a good deal of the frustration and hatred related to the style had to do with its directly harmful effects. Brutalist buildings replaced the urban blocks that people came to idealize by the mid- to late-1960s, and as part of block-clearing projects, they contributed to the social and racial inequality at the heart of urban renewal. More than this, brutalism was the architectural language of the midcentury welfare state, with its promises of social good and realities that were often much more harmful or at least highly contradictory.”

So as people walk past a decaying brutalist government building like Boston City Hall or FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., they naturally associate this strikingly geometric style and its gradually decaying concrete with whatever their chief frustrations may be as American citizens—be that a belief that the federal government taxes its citizens too much and offers them inefficient or subpar services, or that it doesn’t tax the wealthy as much as it should and public goods suffer neglect as a result. Goldstein emphasizes how there’s an element of nostalgia at play. 

“Certainly observers still point to the many harms of redevelopment, but in an era when big projects can’t often get done without private interests at the wheel, and after decades of attacks on the idea of an interventionist public sector, there is a certain nostalgia for the era that brutalism represents,” he says. “So one outcome [of that] is a new appreciation for the kind of big thinking, public ambition, and idealism of that era, warts and all, and brutalism is wrapped up in that.”

That combination of aesthetic scorn and nostalgia for an investment in the public good is part of what inspired design writer Owen Hopkins to devote an entire book to the movement (The Brutalists will be out from Phaidon in 2023). “The world that created brutalism and the one we live in now is very different,” Hopkins tells AD. “Yet despite this, and for all of brutalism’s many faults, at its best it demonstrated—with a rare visceral energy and power—architecture’s potential to remake the world for the better. As we grapple with the myriad challenges facing us collectively today, those individuals who believe the world can be changed and who work tirelessly to achieve it are needed more than ever.”

This guest bedroom inside a brutalist home in Milan showcases nudes from the client’s photography collection alongside a sculptural side table by George Mohasseb. The wall and cabinet are sheathed in nabuk leather, and the bath, beyond, is clad in emerald green quartzite. Photo: DePasquale+Maffini

One practical explanation for brutalism’s resurgence is the simple passage of time, Goldstein says. “Enough time has passed—the gulf of history, as people sometimes call it—that people (and especially younger generations) can see brutalism anew,” he tells AD. This is something that has happened with nearly every architectural style that preceded it: Victorian houses were judged too garishly ornate, only to be reevaluated years later and preserved. Midcentury modernism, for example, was neglected for decades before enjoying a renaissance that just now seems to be cooling. A key element is also maintenance: As time passes and tastes evolve, examples are winnowed as communities must decide what to preserve and what to tear down. 

“As time has passed, many of the better or more monumental brutalist buildings have remained standing while more banal examples have been replaced, so we are also seeing a better selection of brutalism,” Goldstein explains. “And as part of the renewed interest, some of the highly engaging but historically controversial buildings, like Rudolph’s Yale Art & Architecture Building, have gone through full restorations, so people are seeing them at their best.” 

The spacious play area of Evan Yurman’s home in the Catskills features a locally made table with stools purchased from a nearby Waldorf school fair, an Eames lounge chair, and a painting by Augustus Thompson. Photo: Chris Mottalini

But what we haven’t seen until recently—with the notable exception of Ron Arad’s Concrete Stereo from 1983—is the clear distillation of brutalist style into smaller home goods. Lori Legaspi Moores, vice president of merchandising at SSENSE, draws a direct link between style and place, noting that brutalism is now “at the core” of the SSENSE aesthetic in part because of where the company is rooted. As she further explains in an email, “SSENSE Montréal [is] our flagship store, designed by David Chipperfield architects where the historic 1866 façade houses an in situ concrete structure—a building within a building. The concrete materiality of SSENSE Montréal is resonant with the company’s values and the material’s legacy asserted in the era of Expo ’67 with brutalist landmarks such as Habitat ’67 and the Montréal Metro system.” Legaspi Moores notes that as the firm’s “everything else” department has grown, brutalism has its fingerprints on designs like the AnZa Espresso Maker, which almost looks like a civic building from the late 1960s that happens to dispense delicious coffee. 

Even though maximalism (think English Country decorating, only more so) is certainly still going strong, both minimalism and brutalism offer people a kind of natural flexibility because the canvas of an interior can be re-contextualized and remixed with ease. And, perhaps fascinated by its history, people seem to be researching for it as well. Legaspi Moores adds, “Upon the introduction of the books category at SSENSE this past fall, the first book to sell out was the Atlas of Brutalist Architecture from Phaidon.” Kate Wagner, who was in high school in the 2010s and devoured architecture through Tumblr and books like Peter Chadwick’s This Brutal World (which features dramatic high-contrast photographs of brutalist buildings) believes that interest in the movement waxes and wanes as each new generation encounters it in the wild. 

“All in all, [brutalism] remains a fascinatingly cyclical interest and preoccupation, taken up by each generation of young people and creatives,” she concludes. “Perhaps because there’s still something to learn from it, but in reality because it feels so foreign and detached from the world we live in now.”