Taste is individual, but I just don't understand how you could find a heap of concrete slabs to be beautiful. To me, beauty is life-affirming, and brutalism is the physical embodiment of a philosophy that denies life in favour of rigid functional structure. It's the physical representation of kafkaesque bureaucracy.

I’m glad you’re respecting taste, especially when you’re throwing such anthropomorphological argument against it ;)

I’m not sure why there is such a significant aesthetic difference between cutting stones and stacking them (masonry architecture) and filling the exact same form with concrete, especially when the latter is usually far more robust and thus, safer (read: actually life-affirming, by being neither flammable nor easily collapsible, if designed right) and also permitting structural forms that are simply not possible using any other medium

Architecture follows philosophy. Skyscrapers (internationalist style) and large curved glass buildings (modernist style) have the same core philosophy as neoliberalism, for instance. Brutalism came about as an explicit rejection of aesthetics and "higher purpose" to building facades - an idea deeply rooted in materialist philosophy, hence its adaptation by the Soviets. The grandparent comment demonstrates this perfectly: "IMHO a healthy society should be "above" this sort of stuff". Your argument to building materials is also an example of this - while it's true, it is reductionist; living in a concrete jungle is not better than living in a wooden fishing village just because the materials are less flammable.

The philosophy of architecture isn't really a "anthropomorphological argument" when architecture exists for humans, at the behest of humans, and represents human values. The idea that a building is just a box that people exist in is itself a philosophical position, one that is exemplified by brutalism, and one that I and many other people are opposed to.

Interesting. Very holistic. Which is to say, not very concrete. Wink.

Did you follow the link I posted a few comments up, the "nine brutalist wonders of the architectural world"? Explain how those exemplify "just a box that people exist in"

> Interesting. Very holistic. Which is to say, not very concrete. Wink.

Very modernist thing to say. I suspect we have very different philosophies, and I have a strong distaste for modernism, materialism and reductionism in general. You can't quantify the things that actually matter in your living environment beyond the bare essentials of survival, so of course the concept is not concrete to you if the only things you value are the things you can measure.

> Explain how those exemplify "just a box that people exist in"

Yes I saw the article. The few that actually were buildings instead of sculptures (barbican, bank of London and South America, geisei library and the cathedral) are hideous. The cathedral is the least ugly because its at least not a raw concrete facade, but as far as cathedrals go it has to be the first I've seen that left me with no sense of awe whatsoever.