The Wall in the Head by Christopher Beanland

Author:Christopher Beanland [Beanland, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2019-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

25

2005

‘Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to this Birmingham University event. Tonight we have five speakers putting the case for different styles of architecture – each has picked one as their favourite, and we’ll see who wins at the end of the night. The styles that will be duking it out tonight are Georgian, classical, post-modern, Gothic and brutalist. So, first on stage, I’d like to introduce Belinda Schneider, who’ll be arguing the case for brutalism.’

I thought architecture was supposed to be dynamic. This lot looked like they’d been wheeled in from the hospital round the corner. A trickle of applause reached a damp crescendo, then subsided. Lots of coughing followed. Two women in their eighties, who were seated next to me, rummaged in a handbag – I presumed one of them owned it – and relieved it of a pack of the type of disgusting sugary boiled sweets that are fit only for the glovebox of an old car. They loudly unwrapped the sweets and muttered something about them ‘getting smaller’ as Bel took the stage.

She said, ‘Hello,’ then pressed a button. The screen behind her read GLOBAL PROGRESSIVENESS.

She continued. ‘What if, instead of “brutalism”, the most exciting type of architecture we’ve had for 200 years was known as global progressiveness? It’s progressive – in moral character and in its sheer artistic bravado, its bold, bulky bravery. And it’s global. Just an idea. Maybe you’ve got a better one. Really, “brutalism” could be called anything. Brutalism was a word that ended up being pejorative. Though today, perhaps we can see that it’s been reclaimed as a positive thing. Anyway. Let’s look at some unrepentant buildings.’

She pressed the button again – and then again after each slide had depicted the building she mentioned. Clicks. After. Each. Paragraph.

‘Skopje, Macedonia. The Central Post Office.’

‘Scarborough, Canada. A university.’

‘Lyon, France. Couvent de la Tourette.’

‘Buffalo, USA. Courthouse.’

‘Marseille, France. Unité d’Habitation apartments.’

‘Vienna, Austria. Wotruba Church.’

She ran her eyes over the audience. ‘Look how inventive these buildings are, how sculptural. Yet they’re just lumps of concrete!’

‘Freiburg, Germany. An office block.’

‘Poplar, Britain. A housing estate. Several, actually, next to each other.’

‘Sao Paulo, Brazil. The MASP art gallery.’

‘Gateshead, Britain. A car park and rooftop cafe on top of a shopping centre.’

‘Sydney, Australia. University campus.’

‘Chandigarh, India. A whole city.’

‘Tokyo, Japan. Rissho University.’

‘Brutalism was globalised, and it was exciting. It was the future. Brutalism was honest, raw, avant-garde, a cry for more and a call to arms. Was it inhuman? In scale – perhaps; in looks – possibly. It was often provocative and it was often overwhelming. And sometimes we want an architecture that doesn’t play nice, doesn’t kowtow. But what people forget is how nurturing it could be too. Look inside those buildings and see how warm and inviting they can be, how they can be like cocoons protecting you from the world. There are so many plazas and cosy libraries and cafes and seating areas that we forget about. A true style for our times. A modern modernism. A style which

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