First off, I’m going to apologise. Done.
names like Mies Van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier.
All Bauhaus architects not one true Brutalist amongst them. And not much work between them that would fall into that architectural mode, more homework needed. Allow me to recommend
Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis as a good starter.
Kahn, the-team-that-worked-on-the-Barbican*, Ando, even Asplund would have been a better headline if your aim was to produce a Brutalist line-up. And Asplund could hardly considered to be brutal at all!
And yes, I love Chapel de Ronchamp as much as the next architectural graduate, it has a grace, solemnity, majesty, weight, permanence, lightness, humour, which you just have to go there to experience. A truly profound architectural experience that is beyond description – you’ve either been there, or you haven’t. However, even if I were to allow you Corbie as a Brutalist (which I am
not) then it is about the furthest of his works from Brutalism that you could get: Those curved, swooping roof plains, the randomly sized and located window punctuations, the periscopic clestory windows. And don’t get me wrong, I’d have argued just as heavily (though differently) if you’d picked Unity for your mouse mat, it’s multi story and it’s concrete, but it’s still a long throw from being Brutalist. The Chapel de Ronchamp mouse mat could (should!) be white and beautiful and alive with colours, so many of the windows are bright sheets of glass (my personal favourite and probably everyone else’s is "la mer") it’s a thing of beauty, but it is not Brutalist.
And to the guy who said arches aren’t brutalist, Khan says otherwise – Exeter library springs immediately to mind and plenty of others besides that I’d have to look up. There is no single thing that makes or breaks Brutalism
Like most architectural modes, it’s easy to point at a Brutalist building and say simply and clearly
"that building is Brutalist" (or say hi-tech to hi-tech, post-modern to post-modern, tudor to tudor,
etcetera ad nauseum, reductio absurdum, ad infinitum, si hoc non est uti sic erit rubiginosa**) but sorting an “ingredient list” of brutalism is difficult. You’ve obviously jumped straight to concrete as the material choice de rigueur, but what about the brick of Khan, and Alto? Can timber be Brutal, despite its intrinsic warmth and softness (?) generally no, but its imprint is found on shuttering throughout the world forever moulded into concrete façades, the ghost of timber past as it were. And what about the antonyms, non-Brutal concrete architecture, there’s plenty out there. An unflinching adherence to a simple structural grid is another common “got’ya” used to point out Brutalist architecture, but this is also (and especially) true of industrial revolution factories, mass housing anywhere and more besides. What I’m trying to say here (likely quite ineffectually and slightly verbosely [though I could go on at length {and no, I haven't yet}]) is that there is a feel to Brutalism, a sense that something either is, or is not Brutalist.
Your palate is semi-Brutalist.
Your mouse-mats are not Brutalist.
The design of your novelty keycaps is not Brutalist.
Your collaboration aluminium keycaps are not Brutalist.***
Brutal score : 2/10 must try harder!You've got some concrete tones and the word Brutalist, but that's all. Wanting a thing to have some intrinsic quality does not bestow that quality upon it you have to work at it,
so go pick some daisy's ****
*I’m not as keyed up on my architectural history as I once was and refuse to google it… Though the Barbican sink is a masterpiece, I recommend you google that… crying shame Twyford don’t make it any more, would specify in so many projects
**I did have to look up that last one
***I'd hate to have to design one that were, as mass / massiveness is something else that goes hand in glove with Brutalism. Though having said that, I know there are "concrete" products for the production of jewellery, perhaps experimenting with one of those might bear fruit?
****I did apologise
