Page 50 - AARF 2019-2020

Interior Movie Set from Torch-Cut Sculpture
American Hustle by Willem DeGroot
A RESURGENCE OF INTEREST

IN BRUTALIST SCULPTURE
As Defined From Its Origins In Mid-Century Brutalist Architecture
Submitted by Lorena O. Allen, M.Ed.

A Style of Architecture Symbolizing the for future Brutalist projects across
Industrial Aesthetic of Post WWI Europe and the United States.
The Brutalist Movement of
Origins of the Brutalist Architecture had its critics
movement had its roots in an which may have been due to the
urban culture in Europe after cold and soulless nature of the
WWII, which was still in the wake of architecture, often associated
post war angst. A need developed with totalitarianism. In England,
for inexpensive construction Charles, Prince of Wales, referred
that projected strength and to the structures as piles of
impermeability. Swiss-French concrete whose facades project a
Architect Le Corbusier’s love stark, menacing bunker sensibility.
of concrete epitomized the Tom Wolfe’s "From Bauhaus to
Modernist architecture of mid Our House", became a symbol
20th Century, defined by tiered of everything wrong with the
levels of exposed concrete slabs Brutalist movement, including
and devoid of decorative elements. the raw concrete of the buildings,
Beton Brut or Raw Concrete was a making the perfect surface for
French term used by Le Corbusier graffiti artists, whose vandalism
to describe the raw materials, contributed to the decline of these
later synthesized into the term structures.
Brutalism. Le Corbusier’s first Within the last five years, a
project of Brutalist architecture resurgence of appreciation for
was Unité d’Habitation in the Brutalist style of Architecture
Marseilles, completed in 1952, has occurred and a number of the
constructed with reinforced iconic Brutalist structures have
concrete which laid the framework been granted historical status.

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