It's not brutalism's fault that the building is bad...
There certainly can be good brutalism. In theory at least.
I'm partial to some of Paul Rudolph's work myself. It's a shame more people don't enjoy the feeling of being overpowered by the buildings they inhabit.
It's a shame more people don't enjoy the feeling of being overpowered by the buildings they inhabit.
Lemmie see.
Freezing cold in winter
boiling hot in summer
Well that's one kind of overpowering, I suppose.
The bloody building doesn't work!
Of course it's Brutalisms fault
I can imagine Winston Smith peeping his head through one those windows. My next thought is - why go through all that extra effort in design and construction to make something that makes your testicles retract at the sight of it?
How do you figure? The proportions of the building and concrete cantilevers don't make it cold in winter and hot in summer.
The architect is to blame for certain, for placing too many windows in the wrong places, not enough in the right places, and not accounting for shading in the summer.
Brutalist buildings can utilize passive solar heating in winter and proper sun-shading in the summer just as much as any other building.
For those who like brutalist architecture there are still plenty of bunkers an gun emplacement dotted around the country.
The architect is to blame for certain, for placing too many windows in the wrong places, not enough in the right places, and not accounting for shading in the summer.
Yeah but apart from that, the guy was a genius,
right?
Reminds me of a certain Morecombe & Wise sketch!
Sadly I expect it will be replaced by another piece of shit architecture paid for by a PFI scam.
It looks like a pile of 3-ring binders on their sides.
In Chicago a few years ago a noted architect built a vast new state office building with many features, like a brilliant low energy cooling system and offices overlooking a 20 story tall sun-filled atrium. Alas, it took two years of tinkering to get the air-conditioning in the sealed buliding to work properly, while civil servants froze in winter and fainted in summer. The atrium was so sunny that people brought in beach unbrellas to shield their screens from the glare.
Built arround 1966-70, it stood about 40 years. Most buldings stand longer, if not hundreds of years. It sure wasn't intended to be torn down in just 40 years.
So, it is a failure. A pretentious, pompous failure. Like most things that are "modernist".
Looking at the angles on this piece of crap, I'm betting that the place also leaked during every rainstorm for its first few years of existence. Does anyone know?
"I'm betting that the place also leaked during every rainstorm for its first few years of existence. Does anyone know?"
I've not come across a sixties building that didn't.
Generally though,what a waste to pull it down when it could house our MPs instead of buying them homes in London.
Having looked at a few pictures of that building, I think a part of my soul is gone forever.
God, I remember staggering past this more than once and wondering what the HELL it was! I think I was usually full of Waddie's at the time, tho, and did not inquire further. --a former tourist
Jacob wrote:
Built arround 1966-70, it stood about 40 years. Most buldings stand longer, if not hundreds of years. It sure wasn't intended to be torn down in just 40 years.
The last time such ghastly architecture came up here, I mentioned the old Kiewit Computation Center at Dartmouth College, a similar 60s building that only lasted 40 years.
You're right that it's a failure, and what's even more ghastly is that the architects are deliberately coming up with this sh*t as part of a policy of social engineering.
It's not brutalism's fault that the building is bad...
Brutalism is a collective adjective for a style of architecture that is associated with large, shit-brown slabs of concrete, flat roofs, etc. With such buildings, leakage, bad ventilation etc was routine. The problems were the faults of the architects who built them and the idiots who - often in receipt of taxpayer's money - commissioned them.
The proportions of the building and concrete cantilevers don't make it cold in winter and hot in summer.
Try telling that to the people who try to study and teach there. I have been inside the school for a couple of evening classes in the summer: the atmosphere in there was awful. The design is oppressive, dark, dank and unpleasant. I don't know whether you have been in there, "Rusty", but I have.
Will the replacement school have a star and crescent above it?
I like the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury. It's a cool building and the flats in it are highly sought after - as soon as Camden Council stopped running it.
A private developer knew how to utilise it properly. Another example of free market economics making life better.
So Brutalist strcutures can work. Occasionally.
The funny thing is that the four people I met or heard of who went there:
The notorious Harry Phibbs, now a Conservative local councillor, once the editor of the Federation of Conservative Students' magazine, New Agenda. For those who remember, one word: "Guilty."
Tim Evans (the Libertarian Alliance one, not the medical doctor or the guy who was wrongly hanged for murder).
Patrick Harrington, who infamously was the target of years of student boycotts at the North London Polytechnic for being a prominent member of the National Front. Partly thanks to the fact that all the other students refused to attend lectures with him, I gather he got virtual one-on-one tuition for his final year. I'm not clear who was punished by this.
and the son of then (Labour) Home Secretary Jack Straw MP, who shortly after leaving Pimlico, decided to offer drugs to a journalist, or was the victim of a vicious entrapment, depending on which version you believe. Whose name escapes me.
So as a place of indoctrinating socialism, Pimlico School has not been a lasting success.
I note that Jack Straw's son got into Oxford, the other three graduated at lesser higher education centres.