A screenshot from the second installment of Kate Wagner’s consideration of Brutalism. After using numerous examples of other buildings to talk about what Brutalism is not, Ms. Wagner invokes the building above—Paul Rudolph’s Endo Laboratories, a project from 1960 in Garden City, Long Island, NY—to show one that which she asserts is a true exemplar of the style.
We continue to Love Kate Wagner’s McMansion Hell
In a previous post we spoke of our admiration for McMansion Hell—Kate Wagner’s barbed, witty, and consummately smart blog-website about the foibles (and occasionally successes) of architecture and urbanism. Her posts are famous for their satirical analyses of McMansions: in each example Ms. Wagner selects, she offers her opinions and assessments on what’s false, ostentatious, without-taste or sense, or just poorly planned or composed. Her website site is a constant eye-opener, and one can obtain a rich education there (and also by exploring its archive.)
A screen shot from Wikipedia’s article on Kate Wagner’s McMansion Hell website—illustrated with one of their analysis of a McMansion (for which the site is so well-known). The article also notes the websites’s large following.
But It’s Much More Than Fun
Even skillful satire can eventually become tiresome—but that’s never the case with Kate Wagner’s work. We contend that’s because what she offers is much more than just puncturing the pretensions of architectural affectation. Her barbs are backed-up by serious thinking about design and social issues (and the history which binds them)—and that keeps the writing interesting and involving.
Back to Brutalism
This can be experienced through the a topic which McMansion Hell took-up in 2019: Brutalism. In the initial post, which announced that she was starting a 5-part series on the topic, she said it was necessary because:
“Brutalism has a special way of inspiring us to ask big and difficult questions about architecture. ‘Is Brutalism good?’ is really a question of ‘is any kind of architecture good?’ - is architecture itself good? And what do we mean by good? Are we talking about mere aesthetic merits? Or is it more whether or not a given work of architecture satisfies the purpose for which it was built? Can architecture be morally good? Is there a right or wrong way to make, or interpret, a building?”
As promised, Kate Wagner has returned to the topic with Part Two in the series. She starts with the classic (and classically effective) technique used by Socrates: the Elenchus—that initial and necessary part of any serious investigation, where one clears away false notions and muddled definitions. Thus the second installment is titled—
—and starts by taking up the question of why she is…
“… discussing what is not Brutalism? The answer is simple: of all of the terms in the history of architecture, Brutalism is perhaps the most misused and misunderstood by the general public.”
In the post, she shows 10 works of architecture, from Richard Rogers Lloyd’s Bank in London -to- Yuri Platonov’s Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. These are buildings which, on initial viewing, might easily be labeled as being part of Brutalism—and then she explains why they don’t really belong in that category.
The article uses various examples of buildings which one might think are part of Brutalism—as this screen shot from the post shows—and then shares facts and insights about each, explaining why they shouldn’t be categorized as Brutalist.
We won’t go into her explanations about each—fascinating as they are—for our paraphrase could never convey the pleasure of reading Wagner’s text, directly, yourself.
But we will share one section which we found moving. It is a passage that begins to go beyond addressing the specific historic, theoretical, or material aspects of Brutalism:
As Ms. Wagner develops these points, it was great to see Edmund Burke brought into the argument, as she later invokes his theory of the Sublime. That’s a powerful key to perceiving the value of Brutalism (and much of Modern architecture)—but one which is not summoned often enough. Also, who could disagree with the need for enhanced education in these matters, as well as a more subtle and intelligent discourse.
We look forward to the upcoming chapters of Kate Wagner’s exploration of Brutalism, which are sure to offer further insights and surprises.