Brutalism

On this cast

• Stair towerLifts and stairs are pulled out into their own sculptural volume, here a raw concrete cylinder.
• Béton brutRaw concrete, left as it came out of the formwork. The name is usually traced to Le Corbusier's French, not to 'brutal'.
• LoggiasEvery flat gets a deep recessed balcony. Repeated by the hundred, they turn the façade into a honeycomb.
• Brise-soleil gridThick concrete fins and slabs, a sun-breaker that shades the glass and casts deep shadows.
• Bush-hammered ribsConcrete cast in ribs, then the ribs are hammered so the gravel shows. Texture instead of ornament.
• Roof sculptureVent stacks and lift housings shaped like sculpture on the roof terrace.
• Splayed pilotisMassive tapering legs lift the whole slab off the ground. Look for the grain of the timber boards on every surface.
• Entrance hallA glazed, recessed hall under the slab, with a heavy concrete canopy.
• GroundThe block stands free on its legs, the ground flowing underneath.

How to spot it from the street

1. Exposed raw concrete with board marks
2. Heavy, blocky, sculptural masses
3. Deep-set windows in a repeated grid
4. Stair and service towers as separate volumes

Where it came from

Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation in Marseille (1947–52) left its concrete rough as it came out of the formwork: béton brut. In Britain Alison and Peter Smithson and the critic Reyner Banham turned that into 'the New Brutalism', an honest, tough architecture for the welfare state.

Brutalism was used for universities, housing estates, theatres and city halls from London to Boston to Tbilisi. Look for the board marks and tie holes in the concrete, deep-set windows in a repeated grid, and stairs and lift towers pulled out as separate sculptural volumes. It became the most hated style of its century, and is now being loved again.