Owen Hatherley: The Politics of the Brutalist Commemorative Mugs / Brutalist architecture in nostalgia and policy
Brutalist architecture today is in a paradoxical situation. In Britain, where the term was coined, it is still blamed for social ills, with the Prime Minister recently referring to ‘concrete walkways’ that ‘design in crime’, at the same time it has become incredibly fashionable. Seemingly dozens of coffee table books document what has survived, Tumblrs pile up inviolate images of untouched Brutalist buildings without people, mugs, teatowels, model kits and prints depict images and blueprints of British Brutalist landmarks, and the most ‘iconic’ Brutalist buildings are gentrified. Does any of this matter? One answer to this question would be to investigate what the politics of Brutalism were, before we can talk about what the politics of its gentrification might be. Brutalism emerged, clearly, during the welfare state era, and in Europe especially became one of the architectural emblems of that era – and was heavily criticised in the 1980s for that reason. Today, the welfare state is close to being totally dismantled, and yet the architecture that accompanied it is more prized than at any time since the 1960s itself. But what were the politics imagined by the designers of, say, Robin Hood Gardens, Balfron Tower, Trellick Tower, the Barbican or the Alton Estate, and what influence did this have on how they conceived of their architecture? To what degree is the gentrification of this architecture an injustice, where working class housing is appropriated by the ‘creative class’, or is it merely an unsurprising bourgeois appropriation of an architecture that was always planned and promoted by bourgeois architects? Should these buildings be protected from privatisation and gentrification, in the context of an acute housing crisis?
Politike brutalističkih šolja / Nostalgija za brutalizmom
Brutalistička arhitektura je u stanju paradoksa. S jedne strane, u Britaniji gde je skovan termin brutalizam, još uvek ga krive za društvene probleme pa je čak i premijer nedavno prozvao te “betonske staze” “zločinačkim dizajnom”. S druge strane, brutalizam je neobično popularan. Naizgled, desetine knjiga na stolovima u kafeterijama dokumentuju ono što je brutalizam preživeo, na Tumblr-u se gomilaju slike brutalističkih zgrada bez ljudi, šolje, makete, printovi prikazuju slike i nacrte britanskih brutalističkih znamenitosti, dok je većina legendarnih primera naselja izgrađenih u brutalističkom stilu podleglo džentrifikaciji . Da li je išta od svega ovoga važno? Jedan od odgovora na ovo pitanje bi trebalo tražiti u politici koja je vođena iza brutalizma, da bismo uopšte mogli da pričamo o tome šta je politika njegove džentrifikacije danas. Brutalizam se očigledno pojavio za vreme države blagostanja i u Evropi je postao jedan od arhitektonskih obeležja tog doba – zbog čega je bio žestoko i kritikovan 1980-ih, iz istog razloga. Danas je država blagostanja kao ideja odbačena, ali je arhitektura koja je pratila tu ideju danas cenjenija nego te 1960. godine. Ali koje su bile “politike” dizajnera kao što su Robin Hood Gardens, Balfron Tover, Trellick Tower, the Barbican ili Alton Estate, i kako su se one odrazile na njihovu arhitekturu? Do kog stepena je džentrifikacija ove arhitekture nepravda, u kojoj su stanovi nekadašnje radničke klase prisvojeni od strane današnje “kreativne klase”. Ili je pak to buržoasko prisvajanje arhitekture koja je ionako planirana s namerom da promoviše buržoaske arhitekate? Da li ove zgrade treba da budu zaštićene od privatizacije i džentrifikacije, u kontekstu akutne stambene krize?