printThe little I know about Brutalist architecture is enough to make me skeptical of Jonathan Meades’ brilliantly spoken claims for it. This school of architecture seems to have been wedded to The State and, as such, to have taken on its foreboding austerity (expensive and ugly). “Governmentally sanctioned Brutalims” is indeed “the architecture of “cultural welfarism.” But a government-spawned “novelty”? Please!
However, Meades, a Briton of course, is a magnificent advocate for anything, really. His polemics are astounding in both beauty and internal logic. “… a prose style so pugnaciously cultivated, so unpredictably informative, and, enviably often, so extremely funny. …” Meades is indeed a strange experience: You might not agree with his assessment, but you love every moment of it and follow in delight.
On the 1960s cultural output: “A kaleidoscope of polychromatic vacuity.” “Enjoyably witless hedonism.” “A gluppy soap of mysticism …” “New universities busily inventing new disciplines.” Vatican Two decreeing that new churches should be churches in the round, like theaters in the round.”
Bunkers Brutalism and Bloodymindedness Concrete Poetry – Two from MeadesShrine on Vimeo.
*Image courtesy By Aurelien Guichard from London, United Kingdom – National Theatre Uploaded by BaldBoris, CC BY-SA 2.0