Beautiful Brutalist Buildings from all Over the Globe
The world's forgotten brutalist masterpieces.
Brutalism is a truly inspiring architectural movement that is on the verge of being forgotten, but what you may not know is that much of the Brutalist buildings around today are actually still used for vital things such as, housing and hospitality.
To highlight this, Spanish designer Marta Colmenero and GoCompare have teamed up to put together a series of intricately illustrated posters that showcase a wide selection of brutalist buildings from all over the globe. Check them out below.
1. The Balfron Tower in London, which was designed by architect Erno Goldfinger in 1963 and constructed between 1965 and1967. The 26-storey residential tower was once under threat of demolition but in 1996 it was saved and listed as a Grade II building.
2. The Barbican Complex in London is a largely residential estate, widely regarded as the pinnacle of Brutalist architecture. It houses more than 4,000 residents.
3. De Rotterdam in the Netherlands - Designed by Rem Koolhaas in 1998, De Rotterdam functions as both a residential building and office space.
4. Habitat 67 in Montreal, Canada - Designed by Israeli architect, Moshe Safdie, Habitat 67 is a community and housing complex in Quebec, Canada and was originally built as a pavilion for Expo 67. Expo 67 was one of the largest world fairs of the 20th century and gave Habitat 67 an audience of around 50 million people.
5. The Unité d'habitation (Housing Unit) in Marseilles was designed by one of the pioneers of Brutalism, Le Corbusier. Corbusier worked in collaboration with Nadir Afonso and this basis of housing design became a popular architectural design seen throughout Europe under Le Corbusier.
The building is, constructed in béton brut (raw concrete) a material that inspired the name, Brutalism. Built between 1947 and 1952, this housing unit consists of 337 apartments all placed on stilts. The building also consists of leisure, medical and school facilities along with a hotel of 21 rooms.
6. Torre Velasca - Milan, Italy Constructed between 1956 and 1958, Torre Velasca (Velasca Tower) is a skyscraper in Milan, Italy. The first 18 floors are home to shops and offices, and the upper levels up to the 26th floor comprise of residential apartments.
These apartments are wider than the rest of the building, giving the tower a ‘mushroom’ shape. The slanted beams function as supports and helped coin the nickname ‘skyscraper with suspenders’.
7. Kurpaty Healthy Resort, Yalta, Ukraine - Named today as The Kurpaty Health Resort, this building is more commonly known as the Druzhba Sanatorium or Druzhba Holiday Centre. It was built in 1984 by Igor Vasilevsky and is found in the city of Yalta, Ukraine.
This resort was a prime holiday spot. President Vladimir Lenin’s decree in 1920 pushed for a metamorphosis of the city, to make it an exclusive vacation region for the proletariat people.
The Soviets took pride in their philosophy of rest and leisure and saw it as an integral part of socialism. Kurpaty was a symbol of the decree; a Brutalist resort designed in contrast to the typical bourgeois style.
Take a closer look at the beautiful series of posters here.
What do you think of them? Tweet us @DesignCurial!
