ly public affair, with virtually every city in the kingdom

40415

planning to open an architecture centre of gallery of one

New Brutalism

kind or another, it is highly relevant to consider why British

architecture is more internationally influential now than it
has been since the heyday of Edwardian country-house
building. Arts and crafts architecture originated with the
architects George Devey and Philip Webb, and became

by

famous with Webbs Red House for William Morris in

Dr John W Nixon

1859. This was a built manifesto of Morriss repugnance

for the machine-made future indicated by the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Joseph Paxtons (high-tech) Crystal Pal-

Related Study Notes

New Brutalism was a 1950s, mainly British, architectural

movement that asserted the primacy of the functionalist
principles in services, materials, and structure. Anything

20400
Architecture and technical
innovation in the machine
age

that distracted from or disguised these was rejected. In

its austere and inelegant rectilinearity, with plumbing,
electric and other services exposed, and cosmetic
treatments eschewed, New Brutalism probably repre-

20445
Frank Lloyd Wright

sents the extreme case of functionalism. Immediately

20513
Le Corbusier

had a certain attractiveness to public authorities looking

20521
De Stijl

following the destruction of World War II, it undoubtedly

for economical means of rebuilding New Brutalist
buildings were very basic. Creating infrastructure for the
new welfare state was another pressing need of the time.
For those who actually had to live in the new blocks of

ace. The style was taken to sublime heights by others,

most notably the young Edwin Lutyens before he got too
monumental. When the German cultural diplomat
Hermann Muthesius wrote his famous account, Das Englische Haus (the English House), in 1905, he was recording a phenomenon of global importance.
Fig. 1 Alison and Peter Smithson, Hunstanton School, Norfolk, 1949
54. Reproduced from V. M. Lampugnani (general editor), The
Thames and Hudson Encyclopaedia of 20th-Century Architecture,
1963; London, 1986 edition, p. 247.

A discernibly British architecture then vanished. Two

world wars and the rise of the international style of modernism, accelerated by the arrival of migr architects,
mostly from Germany, in Britain and America, blew that

20522
Bauhaus

flats or work in the schools and hospitals, though, the

cosy old world apart. In the frenzied post-war reconstruc-

attractiveness was less easy to discern. Prefabricated

tion, British architects were busy copying others.

20527
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

wall, roof, and window units often failed the basic

20543
Scandinavian design in the
20th century

requirement of being draught- and water-tight. Initial

savings here often proved costly in the long term. Less
than entirely successful technically, the mass-housing

The tide began to turn in 1960. Exactly a century after

the Red House, James Stirling and James Gowan built
their superb, mechanistic glass and red brick engineering
building at Leicester University [see Fig. 9]. It was as

projects generally also proved less than successful

knowing an assemblage of earlier 20th-century styles as

socially. With some notable exceptions (the Roehamp-

the Red House had been of romanticised vernacular past,

30710
Abstract Expressionist
painting

ton Housing Estate in London seeming to be one), they

but Leicester also simultaneously recalled and anticipated

often left tenants feeling isolated and depressed within

something else: the architectural potential of virtuoso

30820
Modernism and

stairways hostile and frequently vandalised spaces.

Pearman goes on to describe the rise of the High-tech move-

New Brutalism was led by Alison and Peter Smithson,

ment in Britain, led by Richard Rogers and Norman Foster,

Postmodernism

Jack Lynn, and Ivor Smith. Also associated with it were

and then continues:

40620
Utility and Festival Style
design
40644
Pop design

their own homes, the deck-street corridors, lifts, and

Denys Lasdun and James Stirling.

The arts and crafts tradition survives, now informed by

the alternative tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright in America,

British architecture, an overview

Alvar Aalto in Finland and Hans Scharoun in Germany.

Hugh Pearman, architectural critic of the London Sunday

the tradition of the high tech.

Times, is worth quoting at some length when, on the eve of

the 21st century, he offers the following overview of British

In the text, a Z symbol refers

to these Study Notes

structural engineering

architecture.

The backbone of British architecture today, however, is

It is a venerable tradition. Of course, the Crystal
Palace of 1851. Of course, the great Victorian train sheds.
Of course, the 1844 palm house at Kew by the engineer

What, would you say, was a quintessentially British

Richard Turner and the architect Decimus Burton the

approach to architecture? An approach that is original to

finest glass and iron building in the land. Certainly, some

this country, that emerged here, rather than being an

of the muscular late Georgian warehouses and factories.

import from Renaissance Europe or ancient Greece or

modern America? In the last century, there have been just
two significant British contributions to world architecture.
These are the arts and crafts movement of the late 19th
century, and the high-tech school of the late 20th. Both
have roots stretching back down the centuries. Looking in
opposite directions, they represent our Janus-like attitude
to architecture. Yin and yang, the country cottage vs the
Crystal Palace.
At a time when architecture is becoming an increasing-

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40415u.doc: first published 2004; revised 2007

But high tech goes back further still into the national
consciousness. The shimmering glass and water wall of
[Nicolas Grimshaws British Pavilion at Expo 93 in Seville]
recalls the shimmering glass facades of the Elizabethan
prodigy houses associated with the architect Robert
Smythson, such as Longleat, Hardwick and Wollaton. The
asymmetrical and structurally daring work of the medieval
gothic builders and their Victorian revivalists form a clear
ancestry to Rogers Channel 4. Indeed, much medieval
stonework, dressed to incredibly precise tolerances,

CCEA GCE HISTORY OF ART

makes a lot of what passes for high tech look very crude,
mere industrial chic. The oldest precursor of Fosters

have in common with the Scandinavians.

Stansted airport I have yet encountered a room that

Artistic connections

plays very similar tricks with light, volume and repeated

New Brutalisms focus on crude or raw fundamentals can be

delicate structure is even pre-gothic. Go to the Norman

related to developments in other arts about this time, among

Galilee Chapel in Durham cathedral with its slender Romanesque arches and you realise how long we have been
living with this approach to building.
Naturally, both high-tech and arts and crafts styles
developed in the consciousness of movements elsewhere
in the world None of this alters the fact that our twin
traditions have grown up with us as a nation. One high
tech has always been the tradition of those who push
the boundaries of what is possible, who are consciously
experimenting with the new. The other arts and crafts

Fig. 3 Jean Dubuffet, The Cow with the Subtile Nose, 1954.
Reproduced from Amy Dempsey, Styles, Schools and Movements,
an Encyclopaedic Guide to Modern Art, Thames and Hudson,
London, 2002, p. 175.

these: the art brut (raw art) or anti-art of Jean Dubuffet

(190185), the drip-painting Abstract Expressionism of
Jackson Pollock (191956), the junk sculpture of Eduardo
Paolozzi (b. Edinburgh 1924), and even the Pop art collages
of Richard Hamilton (b. London 1922).

was a formalising of what is termed vernacular building,

the supposedly natural and unselfconscious built forms of
the land as they evolved over time, using local handicrafts

New Brutalisms emergence

and materials. The British have proved very good at both

There have been various accounts as to the emergence of

of these...

the term New Brutalism. It was possibly first used in Sweden,

Given the technologists love of fine craftsmanship and

exquisite details, it becomes increasingly clear that these
apparent polar opposites are the necessary two sides of
the same coin

New Brutalisms context and influences

about 1950, to describe the architecture of Bengt Edman and

2

Lennart Holm, although it is now mainly associated with a

body of British work that emerged about the same time.
Many see it as referring to late-period Le Corbusier, including
his recurring use of bton brut concrete finishes. V. M.
Lampugnani writes as follows:

Britains biggest collective enterprise at the start of the 1950s

New Brutalism gave conscious form to a mood that was

was building the infrastructure of a welfare state. Just as

widespread among younger architects in the 1950s, but in

Swedish social policy was seen as a model within establish-

spite of the fact that it was [sic.] expressed a sentiment

ment circles, so also was Scandinavian architecture and

that was felt in most parts of the Westernized world its

design, with its humanised version of Modernism.

origins can be pinpointed in space and time with some

precision. Although Giedion was wrong in his etymology
(Brute + Alison), he was right in identifying the Smithson

Fig. 2 Alison and Peter Smithson, Hunstanton School, Norfolk, 1949

54. Reproduced from Edward Lucie-Smith, Visual Arts in the 20th

family as the source of the term either Alison Smithson

or the Smithsons friend Guy Oddie (who used to call

Century, Laurence King Publishing, London, 1996, ISBN 1-85669090-3, p. 220.

Peter Smithson Brutus) was the first person to utter the

phrase The New Brutalism, some time in the early summer of 1954.

Reacting against this, New Brutalist architects favoured

The basis was a mood of frustration brought on partly

Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier for the clarity, integrity
and grand scale of their designs, and their open presentation

by the difficulties of building, especially in Britain, after

of structures and materials. Mies was admired primarily for

World War II, and partly by disgust at the smugness of the

his exposure of structural steel framing; Le Corbusier for his

compromising elders who were still able to build because

monumental and unadorned use of concrete in the later

they were well placed with the Establishment. The stylis-

works. His Unit dHabitation apartment block, 194552, and

tic preferences of these elders were known as The New

Maisons Jaoul, 19526, for instance, were admired for their

Humanism by the political Left, The New Empiricism by

brutally direct treatment of function, form and finish his

the political Right. The New Brutalism as a phrase was

concrete finishes tended to be what the French called bton

intended as a mockery of both, but it drew attention to

brut, the patterning of the rough timber shuttering left raw.

certain attributes of the architecture admired or designed

by the Smithsons and their circle...

However, Mies work quickly proved too concerned with

Brutalism implied some sort of attempt to make

aesthetics for the Smithsons and their circle, too much a

concession to establishment tastes. New Brutalist buildings

manifest the moral imperatives that were built into modern

exposed basic structures and building materials, as Mies

architecture by the pioneers of the 19th century, and the

would do, but went beyond this to wilfully expose also

use of shutter-patterned concrete or exposed steelwork

service runs (plumbing, electrics, etc) normally disguised or

was only a symptom of this intention. The fundamental

concealed. And just as all materials were used as found,

aim of Brutalism at all times was to find a structural, spa-

untouched by cosmetic finishes (blockwork, for instance,

tial, organizational and material concept that was, in the

being left unplastered), so also they tended to work largely

Smithsons eyes, necessary in this metaphysical sense

with the pre-existing site, rather than imposing preconceived

or external design solutions upon it something they did

Hugh Pearman, Two sides of the same coin, Culture section, The
Sunday Times, London. Published c. 1998; other details unavailable.

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40415u.doc: first published 2004; revised 2007

See Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture, a Critical History,

Thames and Hudson, London, 1985, p. 262.

Empiricism is the doctrine that all knowledge is derived from

experience.

CCEA GCE HISTORY OF ART

to some particular building, and then to express it with

complete honesty in a form that would be a unique and
memorable image

Perhaps adding to the sense of frustration Lampugnani

refers to was the fact that Britain at this time was withdrawing

storey terrace housing.

JACK LYNN AND IVOR SMITH
In the large public housing development of Park Hill, Sheffield, 1961, by Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith, the topography of

from the last of its colonies.

Selected practitioners and works

ALISON AND PETER SMITHSON
New Brutalisms first major building is generally taken to be
Hunstanton School, Norfolk, 194954, by Alison Smithson

Fig. 7 Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith, Park Hill, Sheffield, 1961. Reproduced from Weston, p. 270.

the overall site and the topology of circulation systems within

6

the site were major factors in the design. The tops of

buildings across the site were kept level connected by
street-decks and footbridges but as the site itself undul-

Fig. 4 Alison and Peter Smithson, Hunstanton School, Norfolk, 1945

51. Reproduced from David Watkin, A History of Western Architect-

ated, and was allowed to remain so, individual buildings

ure, 1986; Laurence King Publishing, London, 3rd edition, 2000, ISBN
1-85669-227-2, p. 653.

development housed some 3,500.

(ne Gill, b. Sheffield 1928) and her husband and architectural partner Peter Smithson (b. Stockton-on-Tees, Co

ranged from four up to fourteen storeys in height. The

John Donat and John Killick point out that the Park Hill
and similar developments have an almost forgotten precedent:

Durham, 1923). The couple married in 1949 and worked

together from about 1950. Hunstanton School excited international interest for its extreme austerity of design. Parallels

Fig. 8 Denys Lasdun, The National Theatre, London, 196776.

Reproduced from Lampugnani, p. 134.

were drawn with the American architect Louis Kahns Yale

The idea of deck-access to housing had been pioneered,

University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, 19513.

some forty years before Park Hill was built, in [the Spangen housing development, 1919] in Holland designed by

Fig. 5 Alison and Peter Smithson, Robin Hood Gardens Estate,

London, 1972. reproduced from Lampugnani, p. 308.

Michael Brinkman. Here was a deck-street of reinforced

concrete, built before Le Corbusier had even started writing, which established one of the most significant histori-

Other major works by the Smithsons include: the Golden

cal precedents in modern architecture although it wasnt

Lane housing, London, 1952; the Sheffield University

discovered for nearly thirty years. Though not wearing

extension, 1953; and the Robin Hood Gardens estate,

the trappings of the machine-aesthetic, it was far in ad-

London, 1972. Of the Golden Lane development, William J.

vance, socially, of the Weissenhof Siedlung [Stuttgart,

R. Curtis writes:

1927; Z20527] whose advanced appearance attracted

Golden Lane implied a criticism of the free-standing

so much international publicity eight years later.

block [such as Le Corbusiers Unit dHabitation]. The

respond to the surrounding street patterns, while the inte-

SIR DENYS LASDUN

Sir Denys Lasdun (19142001) knighted in 1976 was

rior street [as in the Unit] was brought to the edge of the

one of the most prominent of the New Brutalist architects,

faade and repeated at every third level. The street-deck

best known for his large horizontal-slab buildings executed in

was intended to encourage chance encounters, and was

bton brut concrete. Among his works are: the Royal College

a rather abstract attempt at restating traditional working-

of Physicians, 1964, in Londons Regent Park; the European

slabs were linked together in a linear way and disposed to

class doorstep life in the air

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL

The Roehampton Housing Estate, London, 19529, occupies
a 130-acre site beside Richmond Park and was designed by

Investment Bank, 1983, in Luxembourg; and the Royal

National Theatre, 1976, on Londons South Bank.
JAMES STIRLING
James Stirling (192692) was reluctant to regard himself as
part of the New Brutalist movement but in the 1950s he did

Fig. 6 London County Council, Roehampton Housing Estate,

London, 19529. Reproduced from Richard Weston, Modernism,
Phaidon, London, 1996, ISBN 0-7148-2879-3, p. 217.

Fig. 9 James Stirling and James Gowan, Engineering Department

Building, Leicester University, 195963; drawing. Reproduced from
Peter Gssel and Gabriel Leuthuser, Architecture in the Twentieth

the London County Council Architects Department. Le

Century, Taschen, Cologne, 1991. ISBN 3-8228-0550-5, p. 297.

Corbusiers radiant city concept and, in particular, his Unit

dHabitation, 194652, are clear influences. The estate
comprises some 2,000 dwellings housing about 10,000
people in total. There are five 11-storey maisonette blocks,

produce a number of buildings with at least Brutalist tendencies. Among these are: the Ham Common housing development, Richmond, Surrey, 19558; the Selwyn College dorm-

fifteen 12-storey towers, and a range of 2-storey and 46

V. M. Lampugnani (general editor), The Thames and Hudson

Encyclopaedia of 20th-Century Architecture, 1988, p. 247.

William J. R. Curtis, Modern Architecture, Since 1900, 1982;

Phaidon, London, 3rd edition, 1996, ISBN 0-7148-3356-8, p. 444.

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Topography is the description and analysis of a district or locality.

Topology is the study of geometric forms under changing conditions.
7

John Donat and John Killick, Architecture in the 20th Century,

Series 19, part 3, The History of Western Art, slide set, Visual
Productions, Cheltenham, 1987, p. 29.

CCEA GCE HISTORY OF ART

itory project, Cambridge, 1959; the Engineering Department

Building, Leicester University, 195963; and the History
Faculty Building, Cambridge University, 19647. The
influences of Le Corbusier and the late Georgian warehouses and factories of Stirlings native city, Liverpool, can
also be discerned here. From 1956 to about 1962, it should
be noted, he worked in partnership with James Cowan.

A note of criticism
David Watkin, the architectural historian, concludes his
comment on New Brutalism with the following remarks
concerning the Smithsons Hunstanton School and Stirlings
History Faculty Building, Cambridge:
The result will attract or repel according to ones
aesthetic tastes, but what is irrefutable is that the building
was virtually unworkable from the start. Equal if not
greater problems have been caused by Stirlings History
Faculty Building, Cambridge Although it developed so
many faults, it still has many admirers who are fascinated
by its unconventional dynamics.

David Watkin, A History of Western Architecture, 1986; Laurence

King, London, 3rd edition, 2000, ISBN 1-85669-227-2, p. 652.

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CCEA GCE HISTORY OF ART