Brutalist buildings tend to create a love or hate reaction. I’m in the love camp and have been inspired by this modernist style since university after writing an essay on Le Corbusier’s influential Unité d’Habitation, a tower block that reimagined housing for the 1950’s as a ‘machine for living in’.  Brutalist buildings are no nonsense spaces, fortress like structures that serve a practical post war purpose for social housing, industry, cultural centres and institutions. I find beauty in their boldness, the chunky slabs of concrete, the uncompromising and unpretentious raw material and the interesting shapes they take from different view points.  I've put a few of my favourite places but you can see the full list on our pinterest page.

Trellick Tower, London

National Theatre. Image Credit

Water tower, Backnang. Image Credit

Space House. Image Credit

Bâtiments de l'écluse, Kembs-Niffer. Image Credit

Grand Central Water Tower.  Image Credit

Barbican Centre.  Image Credit

Brutalist inspired gifts

In homage to this architectural movement, we have  created a range of Bookmarks. Made to scale (albeit a very miniature 1:5000 version!) these are detailed renderings of some of my favourite London buildings and include the Trellick Tower, a 1960s block of flats in Kensal Town designed by Ernõ Goldfinger; Space House at One Kemble Street designed by Richard Seifert; the National Theatre on the South Bank designed by Denys Lasdun, and of course one of the iconic Barbican Towers – which is available as both bookmark and MONUmini model kit for the true architect hound!