Brutalism's Starring Roles

Brutalist architecture, whatever your opinion of it, is undeniably photogenic. It’s that incredible force of will, the massive forms, the preponderance of concrete; to paraphrase Rayner Banham ‘the clashing of chunky members in space’. It immediately creates drama and incident, an amazing interplay of light and dark. For this reason it has been a favourite of photographers but also film makers ever since it first made its impact on our urban landscapes.

Of course the other aspect of Brutalism that cannot be ignored is they way creative thinkers have viewed it’s starkly modern profiles as redolent of dystopian visions of the future. And thus it has found its way into science fiction as well as contemporary commentaries on broken societies. Perhaps for this reason it has long been erroneously cited as a cause of rotting social values - something that is probably rather apposite at the moment.

Perhaps the first motion picture to utilise Brutalist architecture in this way was Jean Luc Goddad’s Alphaville, 1965, which opens with the central protagonist Lemmy Caution, posing as journalist Ivan Johnson, (you have to admire the inspired creation of character names here) driving his Ford Mustang past a series of concrete cluster blocks amid darkened Parisian streets.

But probably one of the starkest visions of the future came six years later with Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange which chronicles the life of ultra-violent Alex and his ‘rehabilitation’, based on the 1962 Anthony Burgess novel. Here locations like Thamesmead and Brunel University create stark backdrops to the unfolding action. At Thamesmead, Alex brutally attacks the rest of his own gang, his ‘droogs’, sending them crashing into Southmere Lake. What you see behind them in this slow-motion nightmare is the terraced bands of concrete dwellings and overlapping concrete structures which have a curious poetic purity, especially reflected in the water of the lake in a slight early morning mist. The whole scene, its content and location, is unalloyed Brutalism.  Richard Sheppard’s superbly visceral lecture theatre E at Brunel University (1972) in Middlesex forms the backdrop to Alex’s correctional therapy, the Ludovico Institute, where he is infamously forced to watch a series of violent images with his eyes clamped open.

Thamesmead, with its scale and variety of shape and height, seems to have been favoured by film makers as it crops up quite regularly.  It was used rather more positively by director Anthony Simmons in his film The Optimists, released in 1973 and starring Peter Sellers.  Here two children who live in poor conditions on one side of the river, see Thamesmead as somewhere they aspire to living.  More recently the site was used extensively as the location for the British television series MisFits, in which a group of young offenders are caught in an extraordinary storm that imbues them with special powers.

Another horrific glimpse at a possible future was directed by Danny Boyle and released in 2002; 28 Days Later which chronicles the trials of Jim, played by Cillian Murphy, as he evades hordes of psychotic crazies following an epidemic of the ‘rage’ virus from which he, and a handful of others, were spared.  One of the locations used was Erno Goldfinger’s Balfron Tower in Poplar (occasionally miss-attributed to Trellick Tower) where the character Frank, played by Brendan Gleeson, gives refuge to Jim before they set off for salvation in Manchester.  Balfron, like it’s younger sister Trellick, has achieved iconic Brutalist status given its architectural pedigree and extraordinary profile.  It is relentlessly powerful, domineering its setting and presiding over its surrounding, equally Brutalist, estate.  It seems surprising that it hasn’t been used more frequently.

Trellick, of course, has been used as a visual backdrop more than once.  In Martyn Atkins 1988 video for Depeche Mode’s Little Fifteen, the group are seen posing mournfully in monochrome around Goldfinger’s edifice.  It also crops up in a 1979 episode of the British TV series The Professionals.  In The Madness of Mickey Hamilton, the titular Mickey lives in a top floor flat where he plots acts of terrorism.  We are treated to a glimpse inside and on the balcony as well as the building exterior when the CI5 team track their quarry down.  As the character Cowley, played by the wonderful Gordon Jackson, looks up at the iconic concrete slab he comments in typical Hibernian drawl  “I think I’d go mad if I had to stay here.”

Perhaps the most celebrated and oft referenced use of Brutalism in a film is when Owen Luder Partnership’s Trinity Square car park in Gateshead takes a starring role in Mike Hodges superbly gritty Get Carter.  In this cult 1971 Michael Caine vehicle, his hard boiled gangster character travels to Newcastle to find the truth behind his brother’s death.  The car park, designed by Rodney Gordon, poses as a building project presided over by Cliff Brumby, played by Bryan Mosley, and features a number of times.  But it is the scene where Jack Carter confronts Brumby and ends up throwing him off the staircase that everyone remembers, setting as it did a brutal marriage between content and backdrop.  It is recorded that the director, Hodges, knew Rodney Gordon of the Owen Luder partnership but hadn’t realised he’d designed the car park.  Gordon, meanwhile, had always assumed the architect character at the start of the Carter-Brumby scene was a send up of him but this was apparently not true.

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The Origins of Brutalism

During a radio interview recently I was asked what Brutalism is and how it came about. Indeed, as I explore in my book, there are a number of theories as to how the term came to be used in the architectural context. Often cited is Le Corbusier's mantra beton brut which translates as simply rough concrete. Kenneth Frampton in his book Modern Architecture suggests it was coined by Hans Asplund as early as 1950. Of course, the term was brought to wider public attention in 1966 when critic Reyner Banham published his book The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic. But he wasn't the first to put it in print and his title was inspired by fellow Team X members, and personal friends, Alison and Peter Smithson. Alan Powers in his book Britain managed to pin down the first time Brutalism was actually used in print to a brief article in Architectural Design magazine, December 1953, detailing three small house projects, one of which was a concept by the Smithsons for a residence in Soho that was never built. This fascinated me. All too often the origins of a particular word or phrase are difficult to trace precisely but here we have a documented first airing of a term that became part of the architectural lexicon. What it reveals about this often misunderstood label is even more interesting.

The Smithsons had developed a design for a terraced house in Colville Place just West of Tottenham Court Road. The site itself had been bombed but cost restrictions meant that the dimensions of any new dwelling would have to conform to the type of Georgian terrace surviving in the same street. Disagreements with the owner of the adjoining plots to the proposed house meant that, ultimately, it couldn't be built. The concept, though, was to play with the 'internal order' of the house, putting the living quarters in the top of the house in the attic floor to receive the most daylight with the kitchen and bedroom on the floor below and studio at ground floor level. A basement below the pavement contained a bathroom and storage area in the proposed plans.

The crucial aspect of the design, though, was the demand for no finishes at all. The interior would consist ‘bare concrete, brickwork and wood’, there would be exposed ceilings and un-plastered walls. The beauty would be found in the stripped functionalism of the building but with a quality of work that would remain pleasing even when laid bare. This was the essence of what the Smithson’s called the ‘new brutalism’ as they stated in the feature.

They wanted the building contractor to regard the project in the same way as an industrial warehouse; purposely visible. It was this same aesthetic that was applied to one the Smithon’s earliest commissions, the Smithdon Secondary School at Hunstanton in Norfolk (1949-52). Although faintly Meisian in its proportions and the use of glazing and metal beams, the same demand for exposed ‘industrial’ structure without finishing was an essential part of the design.

What this reveals about the emergence of Brutalism as an architectural style or epoch is that the Smithson’s saw it as the next natural progression of the Modern Movement. The first generation of Modernists had set themselves apart from the unnecessary weight of faux historical reference and eclecticism. They had created a style that was pure, simple, lean and responsive to the spirit of the machine age. Brutalism was the next step; stripping away the last remnants of traditional building (rendering, plastering, finishing) and exposing the structure completely but with a standard of workmanship that would bare such exposure. Brutalism was Modernism 'unplugged' and it heralded the way forward for the next generation of Modernists.

This small document of 1953, therefore, represents the first utterance of this crucial step in the development of the Modern Movement. This was ground zero for Brutalism and, for that reason, could be one of the most important architectural texts of the post-war period.

Lasdun's Hallfield listed

Whenever post-war buildings are listed there is usually an abundance of debate questioning the various pros and cons of these edifices to an age of optimism. There seems to be equal weight to the arguments for and against ‘saving’ these structures, some of which it must be said retaining aesthetic qualities not appreciated by all. But the announcement on 10 June 2011 that the Hallfield Estate in Paddington by Denys Lasdun and Lindsay Drake had been granted Grade II listed status by the Tourism and Heritage Minister John Penrose may not elicit as much heated discussion as, say, Keeling House in Bethnal Green which was almost contemporary and by the same architect. This is because the aesthetics at Hallfield, built between 1949 and 1955, are very much part of the lingering International Style of Modernism that pervaded the years immediately following the War and before the thrusting and uncompromising ‘Brutalist’ epoch had taken a grip of the industry.

In 1947 the Tecton firm was commissioned by the borough of Paddington to develop a site at Bishop’s Bridge Road. Tecton had been founded by inter-war emigre Berthold Lubetkin who had wowed and dismayed the residents of Hampstead in equal measure during the 1930s with his Highpoint flats on North Hill. The project architects at Paddington were Denys Lasdun and Lindsay Drake who, after Tecton dissolved in November 1948, saw the scheme through to completion in 1955.

The brief was to provide housing for workers in light industry and to incorporate amenities such as shops, garages, laundry, schools and recreation. The borough was undergoing redevelopment as part of the London plan, moving residents from what were regarded as obsolete housing that had been earmarked for demolition since before the war. The plan was also designed to address the population explosion in the area. The March 1955 Architects Journal article on the scheme cited a rise from 2,000 people in the 19th century to over 138,000 then and so the need for good high density accommodation was acute. The aim was to house 200 people per acre and Lasdun and Drake’s completed estate managed to get comfortably close to this at 176.

The design was celebrated in its day, worked successfully as an almost complete community project and remains a well maintained and on the whole highly regarded by its current residents. The fact that little has changed on the estate in the last fifty years and there seems now to be only negligible signs of age bares testament to the quality of the architecture, the layout, the provision of services and amenities and the attention to detail, all of which became Lasdun trademarks. Following recommendations from English Heritage the estate now has Grade II status and will remain a key London landmark as well as evidence to the potential success in well designed mass housing schemes.

A more detailed account of the Hallfield estate, its design and construction can be found in my book, along with many other works by Denys Lasdun, which is available from the publishers The Crowood Press (www.crowoodpress.co.uk).

Brutalist Breaks

For the longest time I have fantasised about staying in Le Corbusier's proto-Brutalist masterpiece, the Unite d'Habitation in Marseille, knowing that there is actually a hotel in there. This isn't, as one might imagine, a cynical money making scheme dreamt up recently but an element of the building that was always there from the original plans; intended as a place for residents' visitors to stay. These days, of course, it is mostly occupied by devotees of the architect making their pilgrimage to his mecca for mass housing. But one doesn't have to travel as far afield as Marseille to experience Brutalism from the inside. In Britain there are a number of hotels designed in the 'massive' period in which one can book a room, and it needn't be brutal to your bank account either.

St.Giles Hotel, just off the Tottenham Court Road in London's Bloomsbury district, was originally intended to replace the Edwardian YMCA that was demolished to make way for it and was designed by the Ellworth Sykes partnership. Completed in 1977 it remains one of the best examples of Brutalism in the capital; a cluster of four jagged towers in rough cast concrete which jut out over Bedford Avenue. The distinctive design allows natural light into all of the rooms while the projecting concrete acts as bries soleil providing shading from the sun. The 'saw-tooth' arrangement allows privacy as well as uninterrupted views with no rooms facing directly onto any other. A single room can be booked off-peak for as little as £92 which will get you all the usual stuff (safe, work desk, bathroom with shower, hairdryer, flat-screen TV, tea and coffee maker) as well as one of the most central locations for shopping and sight seeing. And if you want more Brutalism it too is on your doorstep with Lasdun's Institute of Education and Seifert's Centre Point both only a few minute's walk away.

The Sheraton Park Hotel by Richard Seiffert Partners enjoys salubrious surroundings situated at 101 Knightsbridge near Hyde Park. It is immediately distinctive with its drum shaped tower, bristling with protruding window bays around its surface. Completed in 1973, the original plan was to build a much taller tower but the LCC and Royal Fine Arts Commission rejected the plans and so the main feature was reduced to 55m. The podium on which the tower stands was less imposing and seems rather featureless by comparison but then the eye is so readily drawn upwards that it barely matters. Seifert seems to have been rather intrigued by geometry as evidenced by a similar drum-shaped structure at 1 Kemble Street and the eliptical sliver of Centre Point, both completed nearly seven years before Sheraton Park Tower. At present one can stay for a night off peak in a single room for about £220 if you shop around for rates online rather than booking directly with the hotel. As well as the usual features of a modern five star room (28" telly, wireless internet, mini bar) you'll be greeted with a glass of champagne on arrival (imagine that at 9am - I'd have to save it for later!), enjoy a marble bathroom with robes and slippers supplied and sleep under a duck-down duvet. You'll wake in the morning to enjoy the view from a bank of three of those fabulous windows which will afford great panoramas if you're high enough up.

The Holiday Inn chain boasts among its portfolio of coastal destinations, a fantastic example also by Seifert and Partners which remains remarkably unmolested on Brighton's seafront, within sight of Wells Coats' iconic inter-war period Embassy Court. Completed in 1967 it came at a time of peak activity for the architect who was also working on London's Centre Point and another building in Brtighton, the Sussex Heights apartment block, completed a year later. Originally known as Bedford Towers or the Bedford Hotel, Seifert's block stood on the site of the Georgian hotel of the same name designed by Thomas Cooper, opening in 1829. By the 1960s it had undergone many changes of ownership until AVP Industries decided to demolish it in favour of a modern tower block. Fate took a hand in settling any arguments about pulling down a Brighton landmark pre-dating the Grand Hotel when a fire tore through the building on 1 April 1964. The opportunity to rebuild led to Seifert and Partners being chosen and the design is grand and beautifully balanced, albeit much less imposing than Sussex Heights at only 49m tall, with a strong linear emphasis redolent of Denys Lasdun's flats at St James's Place. A single room can be booked off-peak for just under £100 going direct to the hotel but better deals are more than likely if you shop around.

Of course if you wanted to experience living with Brutalism longer term and have around £400,000 to blow, a flat in Goldfinger's Trellick Tower can be bought leasehold. This may be an extreme way to show one's devotion to an architectural epoch and so instead a short break in one of Britain's great post-war hotels may be just the ticket.

For more on Brutalist architecture in Britain read my book available from www.crowoodpress.co.uk.