Brutalist architecture—those hulking, concrete buildings from the mid-1950s to mid-1970s—is making a quiet comeback in popularity. A new book by Christopher Beanland, Concrete Concept explores why:
And the sheer variety of these “brutalist beasts,” in cities from Birmingham to Madrid to Montreal, is extraordinary. There are palaces and embassies and government buildings, railway signal boxes and electricity substations. The key thing about concrete, Beanland argues, is it can span great distances (enabling architects to construct stronger and more spacious buildings) and be stretched into wild shapes, from ziggurats and beehives to flying saucers.
