The Case for Brutalism

http://www.theawl.com/2014/06/brutalism-bullies

Robin Williams
photograph by Samerry
star-portraits.com

Hello Everyone:

Before launching into today's post on Brutalism, I would like to take a moment to share some thoughts on the passing of Robin Williams.  Robin Williams was one of those rare gifted comedic actors who could also do dramatic roles with equal enthusiasm.  Like many people, I first got to Robin through the television series Mork and Mindy.  "Mork" was not just an all-knowing alien, he was also very child-like and mischievous.  For me, his roles in Good Morning Viet Nam, The Fisher King, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Good Will Hunting will always remain with me.  Behind the laugh until hurts comedy, Robin battled the twin demons of depression and addiction.  They are both insidious and mysterious physical, emotional, and spiritual diseases that can strike anyone.  Who knows why Robin, a man who had everything to live for,  could succumb to this evil.  What I do know is he is finally at rest.  The battle is over.  Therefore in Robin's memory, if you or someone you know is battling depression, addiction, or alcoholism, please get help.  Here are some links where you find help:

Mental illness http://www.nami.org
Drug dependency http://www.todayna.org
Alcoholism http://www.aa.org

Thank you Robin for the laughter you made this world a funnier place.  Now onto today's post.

Morris A. Mechanic Theater
Baltimore, Maryland
flickr.com

In late April of this year, the city of Baltimore approved a certificate of demolition for the Morris A. Mechanic Theater by John Johansen after a lengthy battle to save one of the most unique buildings in the city.  This nearly fifty year-old building was loved by those few who wholeheartedly embraced heavy-duty functionalist style.  In the interest of full disclosure, yours truly is not a big fan of Brutalism but I do value its place within the Modern movement continuum.  The city of Baltimore plans to raze the former theater and replace with a condominium development.

 Anthony Paletta's article, "Brutalism's Bullies," for The Awl uses the pending demolition of this building to highlight the fate of buildings from the recent past-the sixties and seventies.  Buildings, like the Mechanic Theater, have aged badly and have not earned the same type affection that buildings from early to mid-twentieth century have earned.  Brutalist buildings are not pretty or inspirational, at least not at first glance.  They represent an austere domineering remnant of a reactionist philosophy of a younger generation of architects to the lightness of post-World War II Modernism. This style was favored by governments and institutions who preferred function over flair.  Over the years, Brutalism has earned the enmity of those who wish to replace it with anything else but that.

Prentice Women's Hospital
Chicago, Illinois
chicagoarchitecture.infor

The last two years have been especially unkind to Brutalist buildings.  Of the five at-risk building in 2012, three are no longer standing.  It's been a particularly bad year for John Johansen, not only is his Mechanic Theater about to meet the wrecking ball but also his Mummers Theater in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma faces imminent destruction as soon as the ink on the certificate of demolition is dry.  The razing of Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago commenced last autumn after, insert irony, helpful developments such as Mayor Rahm Emanual's Chicago Tribune op-ed piece lauding its replacement as "progress." The Third Church of Christ Scientist in Washington D.C. was leveled in March and five of the buildings in Paul Rudolph's Shoreline Apartment complex in Buffalo, New York also have an appointment with a demolition crew.

Citing John Grindrod's introduction to  Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain:

There is an accepted narrative to the way we think about our postwar architectural legacy.  That narrative is somewhat akin to the plot of a superhero blockbuster: a team of supervillains-planners, architects, academic-have had their corrupt, megalomanic way with the country for 30 years.  Then, at long last, a band of unlikely heroes-a ragbag of poets, environmentalists, and good, honest citizens-rise up against this architectural Goliath and topple it in the name of Prince Charles.
Bully for Bonny Prince Charles.

Orange County Government Center
Goshen, New York
archdaily.com

Sad to say that this is the way the majority of architecture critics perceive Brutalism today. Those who wish to save this part of Modernism's legacy are not just fighting a wall of indifference, they are locked in combat with Brutalism's sworn enemies who would gladly take turns with the wrecking ball.  These Brutalist arch nemeses liken those who have sympathies for this style as punks, contrarians with no sense of taste, deliberately in opposition to all that is good taste.  These self-appointed arbiters of good taste see battle lines being drawn, on one side are the traditionalists and on other side are the lower-case modernists and said modernists are now conveniently jumping on the Brutalist bandwagon.  Citing Rod Dreher in american Conservative, 

It is ironic that Modernists, who based their entire movement on liberation from tradition, are in a position of making traditionalist(ish) arguments for saving their hideous buildings from the wrecking ball.

Interesting point but let me point out that once upon a time their were critics who considered the work of the early Modernists hideous and now champion them.  What goes around comes around.

Peavy Plaza
Minneapolis, Minnesota
nytimes.com

Therefore, the task before preservation minded people is safe guarding a dying species of architecture that is endanger of being wiped off the map.  Citing A Next American City article that optimistically wished, Prentice Hospital Could Become Modernism's Penn Station Moment, no, it hasn't.  Strangely, as Brutalism is dying off in the real world, it continues to flourish in publication.

   Anthony Paletta uses the example of interest in the work of Paul Rudolph, whose work has frequently been a target of demolition.  Mr. Rudolph's work is the subject of an upcoming Yale University Press Volume by Timothy Rohan's The Architecture of Paul Rudolph and Chris Mottalini's After You Left/They Took it Apart pays tribute to the architect's lost homes-also the subject of a traveling exhibit. The print-only architecture magazine Clog published a 2013 issue dedicated to Brutalism.  John Grindrod's Concretetopia and Owen Hatherly's Militant Modernism and A New Guide to the Ruins of Great Britain have stake their ground in defense of the value and design quality of Brutalist construction in the United Kingdom.  These publications and the valiant efforts of local and national preservationists have generated success: the landmarking of Paul Friedburg's Peavy Plaza, Marcel Breuer and Robert Gatje's Broward County Main Library, and Paul Rudolph's Orange County Government Center.  The latter being the subject of an oddly irrelevant proposal by New York hotel designer Gene Kaufman to buy it for an undisclosed personal use.

Broward County Main Library
Broward County, Florida
broward.org

As deep as the vehemence toward Brutalism runs, a 2012 New York Times "Room for Debate" article on the subject by Anthony Daniels demanded "Atrocities Should be Eliminated."  Mr. Daniels argued that profit, not visceral emotion, is typically the biggest threat to the style's longevity.  Further, most developers' logic for determining if a building is disposable or not is based on whether or not they can own it and build something bigger on the site. This is a threat to architecture in general, especially to styles that the public doesn't value.  Let's put this way, if the New York Real Estate Board could argue straight faced that not a single iota of Manhattan's Midtown East, largely composed of pre-war structures, deserved designation then what hope is there for the Morris A. Mechanic Theater in Baltimore?

Mummers Theater
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
blog.archpaper.com

Fortunately, there have been moments when the sheer presence of Brutalist buildings has been a boom for the style, as in the case of government and institutional structures, where the programmatic elements of new buildings do not differ that much.  Also, demolition and new construction are less cost effective than renovation.  Such is the case with the Orange County Government Center, where renovation proved to be a more cost efficient approach than demolition.

Perhaps, the even greater threat to Brutalist buildings is the association with urban decay. The United States does not have nearly the same inventory of residential Brutalist stock as in Europe, what it does have: government, educational, and institutional structure, suffers from lack of maintenance across the board.  Images of an abandoned and run-down Mechanic Theater or Mummers Theater is even worse in Europe where said buildings would be linked to the vast legacies of low-income residential construction dystopia.

University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
massachusetts.edu

Anthony Paletta rightly points out that even the en vogue midcentury modern design did always feel a good deal of love.  While some of its totems, Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe and the Eames Chair, never age, most of modernism did not merit a second glance.  The television series Mad Men has proven quite useful for show casing production design affected by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill's work from the sixties presented as new not as a hodge podge renovation broken up by ductwork or electric cable.  The point is while mid-century architecture has enjoyed a renaissance thanks to Mad Men and Matthew Weiner's meticulous attention to detail, do not discount a renaissance of Brutalism.  It could happen in this century.

Boston City Hall Plaza
Boston, Massachusetts
en.wikipedia.org

Of course, none of this wistfulness can disregard the fact that Brutalist structures often come with real problems.  Upkeep can be very expensive due to design issues.  For example, the Orange County Government Center has eighty-seven different roofs and the The Third Church of Christ Scientist requires a serious amount of scaffolding just to change a light bulb.  In most cases, the Brutalist concept of spatial arrangement has put urban street life  in a choke hold. An example of this is the Mechanic Theater, whose main entrance faced a mid-block plaza while ignoring an adjacent thoroughfare.  In some cases, the buildings are laid out in such a way, as in Boston's City Hall Plaza, that directly frustrates any meaningful attempt to engage pedestrians.  This alone can make the case for calling out the demolition crew and replacing them.  City Hall Plaza, as totalitarian as it may seem, has not destroyed the dense surrounding streets directly to the south.  Rather, it just sucks all the life out of the area.  Let's put it this way, if you can fit the entire Barum and Bailey Circus in it, it's too big.

Art and Architecture Building
Yale University New Haven, Connecticut
bluffton.edu

Brutalist buildings did contain some humanizing touches that have long been removed or forgotten.  Citing Timothy Rohan's Paul Rudolph monograph, Mr. Rohan outlines some of the more fanciful details at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth:

Carefully chosen, brightly colored textiles and carpeting acted as vibrant, stimulating fall to the omnipresent, grey concrete...[t]hey choose to upholster the common room banquettes in orange and carpet the floor with a pattern of orange, red, and purple stripes.  The banded carpets echoed the raised ridges of the concrete block and the striations on the poured-in-place structural beams and balconies.

This sense of humanity guided the recent renovation of the library building at the university giving it light, color, and openness to the space.  The addition of glass altered the original design, demonstrated how variation and revival of existing Brutalist architecture is possible.  Robert A.M. Stern followed the route for his renovation of Paul Rudolph's Art and Architecture Building at Yale University.  The Alley Theater in Houston, Texas has also undergone a similar renovation.  At a 2013 Clog panel on Brutalism, Jack Johansen''s son noted his late father's response to the possible razing of the Mechanic Theater and what could be altered to accommodate criticism.  However, the architect passed away in 2012 and it is all wishful thinking now.  Brutalism has undergone similar revivals in the United Kingdom, which as the distinction of having the most examples of deteriorating structures.  Some revival examples include the Barbican Estate which has undergone some serious renovations and Erno Goldfinger's Balfron Tower is currently undergoing renovation which may be prove to be successful.

A preservation galvanizing moment a la Penn Station would be a fantastic boost for Brutalism but given the strong feelings for and against, the lack of a iconic building, it is unlikely that there will be a great need for Brutalism any time soon.  Still, it may continue to live in the history books.