A new flowering of brutalism

In the 20th century, the whole world watched the Soviet Union, the Constructivists and tried to comprehend the past wars. The boom of technological innovations of the last century made it possible to improve the quality of life of all segments of the population and excited the world of science fiction.

Brutalism, as an architectural phenomenon, has an ambiguous reputation. This direction is a fusion of cultural protest and harsh urban necessity. Rough, heavy, tough and new forms that took your breath away. Béton brut — from the French raw concrete. Honest, raw materials, no paint, no plaster. Concrete high-rise buildings solved the problem of affordable housing and worked for social elevators. Buildings in this style are found on all continents and it can be said that brutalism contributed to globalization even before the advent of the Internet. With the onset of the economic and political crisis, these buildings ceased to be financed in order to maintain proper care for them, as well as the people living in them. Against the background of poverty, crime flourished in some quarters and a general sense of hopelessness and reflection appeared.

Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that reflects the decline of human culture against the background of technological progress in the computer age. Works related to the genre of "cyberpunk" describe a dystopian world of the future in which high technological development, such as information technology and cybernetics, is combined with comprehensive, excessive, unlimited and uncontrolled state control over society (totalitarianism and authoritarianism), or vice versa, decline, corruption, decomposition of state institutions, kleptocracy, in particular combined with the dominance of giant multinational corporations, mafia, social inequality, poverty or radical changes in the social structure of society itself. The "father" of cyberpunk is considered to be William Gibson with his first novel "Neuromantic".

Brutalism has greatly influenced the development of cyberpunk and techno music. Impressive spaces that have a romance that you will not feel in a shopping mall or cottage village. In all of this, there is also a share of dreams — partly escapist, partly idealistic — about other worlds in an era of lack of alternatives and the impending apocalypse.

Sosbrutalism is a community that, through the efforts of users, collects examples of concrete architecture on one resource, noting especially those that are threatened with destruction.

Zupagrafika is an independent publishing and graphic design studio from Poland, which specializes in the architecture of the post-Soviet space. Over the seven years of its existence, the studio has illustrated and published several books and collections dedicated to the modernist and brutalist architecture of the former Eastern Bloc countries and some others.

SHHD: WINTER is a Russian toska game in which there is no plot, and the player can only wander around the apartment in a panel house or go out into the yard. Pure reflection.

A neural network that analyzes photos of 10,000 photos of panel buildings in Russian cities and generates abstractions based on the data obtained.

In a study of popular visual trends, they said that in our near future, the trend for the development and, brutalism, the introduction of AR technologies will only intensify.

Pascal Deville, director of the creative agency Freundliche Grüsse, launched a portal project with a selection of brutal sites and very quickly went viral. The style appeared as a protest against design standards and typical principles of working with the web, against sites that at some point began to look the same. Web brutalism preaches irony, lightness, carelessness and reflects general "fatigue", limited resources and unwillingness to waste energy on what is not so important. UX is no longer in the first place: the main thing is not usability, but aesthetics. The meaning is not so important. Web brutalism is often abstract. The main thing is to cause an emotional reaction of the user, and not to be logical and understandable.

The Brutalist Websites catalog says: "Brutalism can be seen as a reaction of the younger generation to the lightness, optimism and frivolity of modern web design." There are shades of the underlying brutalist spirit in this, but it is more disrespectful and subversive, but in its own way beautiful and honest.

Against the background of political unrest, the drain of personal data, the dominance of commerce and external worries, for designers brutalism today is a protest, a request for rethinking, honesty and a new sincerity.

Street Messenger is a blog in which the founder of the brand Volchok shows and talks about multistars and simply atmospheric places.

The circle is an association that includes a clothing brand, a radio, a workshop in which they are constantly experimenting with the processing of materials,

Surely there are still a huge number of examples of the development of brutalism in different directions, if you know about any interesting projects, write in the comments.