Arch222 New Brutalism Ersan Ilktan Yagmur

ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE II : Reyner Banham “The New Brutalism” 1966 Yağmur Bektaş- Ersan Ilktan

Peter Reyner Banham, (born March 2, 1922, Norwich, England—died March 19, 1988, London, England), British architectural critic, historian and writer, known for his books Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (1960), Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (1971) and The New Brutalism, Architectural Press, (1966). ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966

Banham saw much of the second world war when he was educated in the Norwich school. In Norwich he started writing reviews or the local paper and in 1949 he began to work in the Caurtauld Institute of Art, supervised by Nikolaus Pevsner.

Later, Banham becomes a member of the Independent Group (IG), by the influence of the Smithson’s and the art exhibition “parallel of life and art” (1953), he publishes his book The New Brutalism in 1966. REYNER

BANHAM 1 ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966 Nikolaus Pevsner

With the lead of Pevsner, Banham started studying the history of modern architecture, starting with Pevsner’s work Pioneers of the Modern Movement (1936). This book is important in terms of arranging a progress of “modern design” from William Morris, arts and crafts movement, to Walter Groupies and Bauhaus.

In 1952 Banham started his job as an editor in the Architectural Review aside Pevsner and M. J. Richards, who both with entrenched attitudes toward modernism. With his mentor he wrote on Italian futurism, till he began to work on his own ideologies.

“Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, (born Jan. 30, 1902, Leipzig, Ger.—died Aug. 18, 1983, London, Eng.), German-born British art historian. He studied at various German universities and taught at Göttingen University (1929–33) before moving to England to escape Nazism. There he taught at the Universities of London, Oxford, and Cambridge. He is best known for his writings on architecture, especially his 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England (1951–74), one of the great achievements of 20th-century art scholarship.”

(Encyclopedia Britannica) ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966 “Parallel Of Art and Life” Exhibition

Rayner Banham was a member of the IG (Independent Group) which was helped to be founded by The Smithsons and other members after Simithsons had maried one year ago in 1949 and later formed a partnership in 1950 and than formed IG in Left and Below; Photographs from the installation of 1952. The other early members include the sculptor the original exhibition. Eduardo Paolozzi, the collage artist Richard Hamilton and the photographer Nigel Henderson.

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With their partnership with the Instıtude of Contemporary Art (ICA) in 1953, they produced an exhibition titled “Paralell of Art and Life” which included 169 images of nonart which are biological artifacts, primitive art and cave paintings, machine parts and structures which reflected the goal of the IG group in defining the “New Brutalism”.

This group was thinking different in terms of how the modernisim is concieved in the world of intellectual designers and thinkers in the british community. Therefore their name is the Independent group.

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The ICA press release for the exhibition explained:

“In this exhibition an encyclopaedic range of material from past and present is brought together through the medium of the camera which is used as recorder, reporter, and scientific investigator. As recorder of nature objects, works of art, architecture and technics; as reporter of human events the images of which sometimes come to have a power of expression and plastic organisation analogous to the symbol in art; and as scientific investigator extending the visual scale and range, by use of enlargements, X rays, wide angle lens, high speed aerial photography.” (Dated 31 August 1953, Tate Archive.)

With their unconventional ways of displaying images, this exhibition suggests a new and more alligned with the Contemporary Movement in which presenting the elements as bare and free which in turn give a sense of Brutalism. 5 ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966

Before this exhibition the IG also produced another exhibition entitled “Study for Paralell of Art and Life” in 1952 which was including Photo-collages of the aritist- photographer Nigel Henderson and the artist Eduardo Paolozzi. In here, the upper row of photographs represent “Life” and the lower row represents “Art”.

Below; Photographs from the exhibition of “Study This was an important comparison because Banhams vision was largely influenced by whether the public opinion shape the architecture we had today. The connection of the art produced with the everyday life of the communities pushed his interest towards Pop Art and other mediums of art where the public life of people and the idea of a house is examined. The connection between these two concepts were also a driving force in emerging the movement “New Brutalism” in later stages.

6 “The Golding Lane Housing Scheme” ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966z 1952 “The Golden Lane Project” By Smithsons

Alison and Peter Smithson, in the exhibition “Parallel of Art and Life” also proposed the Golding Lane Housing Scheme in which they suggested a free design of urban tower blocks that connect with the use of howering pedestrian streets. This was for the redesign of the destructed districs of London after the World War 2. This aimed to bring human experience to the monumental designs of the CIAM modernist projects. Their Design also boldy opposed Le corbusier’s Housing Blocks whichh according to them, lacked expandibility and Collages and sketches from Alison and Peter Smithson (1952) connection. 7 ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966

Brutalist Architecture Brutalist architecture is a movement developed from the 1950’s to mid-1970’s from the modernist movement. This term comes from the idea of “raw”, contrast to the ornamented Beaux-Arts style, as a choice of material like “raw concrete” used by Le Corbusier. Brutalism was important because it was an economical solution to the urban destruction after World War II. The movement needed a name and with the Smithson’s foundation it was called Brutalism in 1953 while they were describing their house “House in Soho, London”.

“In fact, had this been built it would have been the first exponent of the ‘new brutalism’ in England.” - Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, “House in Soho, London”, Architectural Design, December 1953, 342.

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For the Smithsons brutalism was an approach to “face up to a mass- produced society and drag a rough poetry out of the confused and powerful forces which are at work.” So, they tried to extinguish the Scandinavian modernism and any that are rejected by the brut.

Scandinavian design is a design movement characterized by simplicity, minimalism and functionality that emerged in the early 20th century, and which flourished in the 1950s, in the five Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. "What's The Deal With Scandinavian Furniture?". EMFURN. ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966

Le Corbusier Le Corbusier’s works are the best examples of ‘new brutalism’ considered his expressionism through the ‘international style’ included the use of monumental shapes and unfinished, béton brüt/ raw, use of concrete models. In contrast to Mies van der Rohe he represents British architects better by not using glass and steel.

After the World War II and its destruction, the need of housing was inflated. Le Corbusier was commissioned for a residential house for the people that were dislocated. Unite d’habitation (1952, France) is a postwar work of Le Corbusier’s which expresses the change in his style to greater shapes and aesthetic treatment of beton brut, as well as brutalism. 10 ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966

Brutalism became popular of the word “Brutalism” in 1950’s and Banham’s book The New Brutalism (1966) to identify the emerging style in Europe. Its character is typically modular elements repeating and forming massive, exposed concrete construction or showing brickwork in detail, expressing the functional zones on the plan by external the elevations.

Collage by Yağmur&Ersan Collage by Mary Ashcroft 11 ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966

He mainly focused on the common living spaces as where they come together under a “vertical garden city”. This idea aimed to create a larger volume, organizing the spaces for the inhabitant to live both in private and common spaces. So, unite d’Habitation becomes functionally optimized as a “city within city”. The building is constructed from beton-brut concrete, economical plus during the postwar time in Europe, also expressing the conditions during the war as rough, worn, unforgiven. 12 ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966

Hunstanton School of Alison & Peter Smithson

The Hunstanton School, England, built in 1954 by the Smithson’s is an expression of the New brutalist

movement like Le Corbusier’s resident. The conditions in the postwar are reflected with an architectural

effect through the building with the material and structural elements used. All the materials remain as they

are, including the electrical tubes. 13 ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966

“it is out of respect for the materials that we find the root of the New Brutalism… an understanding of the affinity which can be established between the construction and man…”. Alison-Peter Smitshon

14 ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966 Yale Art Gallery of Louis Kahn Another example to the postwar architectural examples for the new brutalist movement is Louis Kahn’s Yale University Art Gallery, USA, 1953. Louis Kahn had a strong relationship with engineers which helped with his designs in a structural point. So, he was able to transform architecture to a monumental and historical way. Yale University building shows his desire to change in terms of the monumentality and the historical side of the postwar. Also, he mainly used raw concrete and brick supporting the brutalist approach.

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“The commission brought about Kahn's discovery of structure, materials, and perhaps most important, the power of the forms he was capable of creating. The Yale Art Center served to catalyze many of his basic ideas and beliefs about architecture, both in words and in work.”

Patricia Cummings Loud

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Pop Art and Brutalism

“Brutalism suggests an engagement with common stuff and raw substance as resistant to the polished digestibility of traditional high art as it is to the easy seductions of mass consumerism. Pop on the other hand connotes openness to and immersion in the image and object world of modern consumer society created by advertising and the mass media, as well as a fascination with its visual rhetoric of immediacy, reproducibility and flatness.” -”Realism, Brutalism, Pop” by Alex Potts in his essay, 2012

Throughout Banham’s many articles he continues to anayse and talk about the many aspects that Pop and Brutalism bring to the table. He thinks that the consumerism and the flexiblity that is being reflected from mass media in the form of Pop Culture could be influencial in defining the new era of Brutalism which in his thinking was populated by strict architecture historians who were far away from the mass culture. Famous Collage by Richard Hamilton, “Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing? “ (1952) 17 ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966

“The Pop art movement was largely a British and American cultural phenomenon of the late 1950s and ’60s and was named by the art critic Lawrence Alloway in reference to the prosaic iconography of its painting and sculpture….Pop art represented an attempt to return to a more objective, universally acceptable form of art after the dominance in both the United States and Europe of the highly personal Abstract Expressionism. It was also iconoclastic, rejecting both the supremacy of the “high art” of the past and the pretensions of other contemporary avant-garde art.” -Encyclopedia Britannica, Definition of Pop Art

By Richard Hamilton,Published in 1965, By Andy Warhol, Published in ”Interior” 1962, ”Campbelss Soup Cans” 18 ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966 The New “X” ism & New Empirism

Rayner Banham in his essay “New Brutalism” analyzed the fact that if we were to add the word New Casa Markelius, Kevinge (Suecia), 1945. to an ideological it becomes directly related to a Sven Markelius historical background attached to it. Because in order for something to be considered new, it needs to “Sven Markelius, in full Sven Gottfrid Markelius, (born Oct. 25, 1889, have a reference point either in the form of a diversion Stockholm, Sweden—died Feb. 27, 1972, Stockholm), eminent or Similarity. İn the case of new Brutalism, it is a Swedish architect who introduced the International Style into response to the Scandinavian design principles of Sweden in the 1920s. -Encyclopedia Britannica, diversion from the “International Style” and evolving to become “ New Empiricism”.

(We will later see a presentation about how New Empirisim influenced Banham next week in Arch222 ).

To be direct, New Empiricism movement is important in understanding how New Brutalism took its name and how Brutalism is drastically different from the neatly designed aesthetic of the Scandinavians. Brutalism suggests a functionalist approach which gathers itself from the manifestation of mass thought reflected by the use of raw materials. It lowers the financial costs compared to Empiricism and aligns itself with the new technological advancements. it is important to now that Brutalist works existed before Banham and Banham had its role in defining the new way of it and combining and documenting the process. 19 ARCH222 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REYNER BANHAM/ THE NEW BRUTALISM 1966 Socialist City Planning

After the postwar and the destruction, it made it became a golden age for new towns. All the projects thought on a town had a utopian image as a beautiful imagery on the mind. There was a socialist city plan designed for the eastern Europe which harmony would lead. So it the planning was based on the social tenets of Marxism- Leninism.

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MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY/ FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE

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SESC Pompéia, São Paulo Lina Bo Bardi, Completed in 1986