Why Brutalism is Utopia’s Imperfect Vessel

Brutalism is an architectural style that divides opinion. It is in equal parts “exciting” and “dystopian” (Clement, 2018), ugly and beautiful, simultaneously inviting and imposing. The fact that Brutalist buildings themselves are often fairly un-ornamental and visually straight forwards makes the clear divide in opinion that much more interesting. How could an architectural style that is often so simplistic and plain in design create such strong reactions?

It is first important to consider the cultural context that Brutalism rose to prominence in. In “Brutalism: Post-War British Architecture”, Alexander Clement traces the development of Modernism across the early 20th century and highlights elements - reinforced concrete, exterior trends - that would eventually become emblematic of Brutalism. The real catalyst for the style’s popularity was World War Two which left several very populated European cities with heavy damage following years of bombing campaigns. Brutalism was seen as an ideal way to quickly begin to recover from the damage, as it could quickly deliver “large-scale, affordable residential architecture” (The Art Story) that was necessary to house larger communities of people who had been displaced by the bombings. Clement highlights that for Britain, whose “Treasury was depleted and… urban landscape decimated”, a style of architecture that was not only easy to build, but fairly inexpensive, was the answer to the housing problems that World War Two had left them with. The new style was embraced as part of an attempt to celebrate the end of the war, and eventually in 1951, the Royal Festival Hall was created and opened to the public as part of the celebrations for the Festival of Britain (Clement, 2018). The building was constructed from reinforced concrete, steel trusses, and large wall-length windows framed by aluminium - elements that cemented it clearly within the Brutalist style - and its prominent position at the festival highlighted Brutalism as the future of Britain.

Figure 1 - The Royal Festival Hall photographed in the 1950s.

Figure 2 - The street decks in Robin Hood Gardens provide excellent spaces to meet and talk with neighbours.

Following the wide-spread acceptance of Brutalism as the post-war solution, the style was widely adopted for many projects that prioritised size and efficiency while trying to save money. For these reasons, it was often used for social housing schemes over the next few decades. A well known example of this is Robin Hood Gardens which was constructed in 1972, and the book Robin Hood Gardens Re-Visions explores the ways in which RHG was designed as a “progressive” (Powers, 2010). The incorporation of street decks allowed a space that was partially public and private, allowing neighbours to stop and talk to each other in a slightly protected space. The use of colour-coding in regards to flat type and floor was intended to give the building more vibrancy, while also creating a way for younger children to navigate the flats and find their way home. The incorporation of a “stress-free” garden area that was designed to keep out the sounds of traffic and the surrounding city environment, it also served as a space for children to play, once again emphasising the ways in which RHG was designed with its residents in mind (Powers, 2010).

Figure 3 - A detatched section of Robin Hood Gardens' facade is displayed at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, as the rest is demolished.

Unfortunately, despite the clear care and attention that was put into many of the housing projects in this era, Brutalism still began to garner a bad reputation. This was partially due to their visual appearance as large, unadorned, and “unsightly”, but also in part due to a growing association with “crime and anti-social behaviour” (IWM, 2025) which, for many outside observers, completely altered the legacy of the style by proxy. Ruby Anderson notes that discussions of Brutalism in the UK are “particularly moralised” mainly due to the style’s frequent use in social housing projects. They explain that critics have a tendency to note the style’s “aesthetic prowess” only once the “working-class families were being expelled”, referring more specifically to an instance where the V&A displayed a section of RHG at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, effectively “artwashing” the housing project by implying that it was at its most important when separated from its duty of housing people. This is a salient point that speaks to the tension between architecture as art and architecture as construction, suggesting that it cannot both serve a purpose and be beautiful at the same time. The fact that this critique is frequently levelled against buildings that house working-class communities speaks to what Anderson terms a “potently political” decision “rooted in class-based violence”. It is for these reasons that it feels important to highlight the ways in which RHG was intentionally designed with the comfort and wellbeing of its users in mind, as opposed to pointing out the aesthetic points that make it look beautiful. The utopian outlook of RHG comes from the ways in which it was designed to care about its inhabitants, and not its appearance.

Another kind of utopia that Brutalism is beginning to embody is the idea of eco-Brutalism which “combines [the] brutalist style with greenery to create a sense of juxtaposition between divergent concepts” (The Ethos, 2025). This is an interesting design idea that takes a style perhaps least-suited to greenery and growth and encourages it to become the vessel for both plant-life, and a more intangible idea of a potential sustainable future. If concrete buildings already populate our cities, it’s surely more feasible to adapt them to be more sustainable, rather than tearing them down to replace them. Additionally, since concrete is a material which causes a lot of damage to the environment during its construction, it is interesting to imagine that being the chosen style to pair this environmentally conscious design trend with.

Figure 4 - Les Étoiles d’Ivry in Paris, France, designed by Jean Renaudie. An interesting example of the greenery merging into the building itself.

Figure 5 - A building in Singapore uses its surface area to house plants in order to affect the surrounding environment.

One place that is famous for attempting to expand its greenery in Singapore. The island city-state experiences an urban heat island which leads to incredibly high temperatures that are incongruous when compared with its surroundings (Biophilic Cities, 2013). This phenomenon can have incredibly adverse effects on its inhabitants, namely higher rates of kidney disease, mental illnesses, strokes in older people, and deaths during heat waves. The surrounding environment can also suffer devastating effects to its ecosystems and rainfall patterns, and heat islands can also worsen air pollution, which further worsens some health problems (Tong et al., 2021). However, it is also known that rural areas fare better than urban areas due to the increased vegetation which allows for transpiration and the release of heat that remains trapped in urban areas, absorbed by materials like brick, metal, and concrete (Tong et al., 2021). With all this in mind, it seems like the best option of reducing these problems lies in increasing the amount of greenery in urban areas.

Figure 6 - Another example of biophilic design in Singapore.

This is exactly what Singapore has attempted to do by encouraging buildings to ensure that they replant greenery for an equivalent of 40% of the site area they fill (URA, 2022). This helps to make up for some of the environmental impact of their construction, and the positive impacts of plants can help to lessen the effects of the urban heat island effect. By encouraging buildings to incorporate so much greenery, this had led to some interesting examples of eco-Brutalist design. However, the fact that the plants have to be incorporated into the building, combined with the fact that leaf area is the metric used to measure the amount of greenery in the building could raise some concerns. It is possible that some developers could minimally comply with the regulations and prioritise plants that can survive in shallow soil or have the most dense leaf area, rather than selecting plants that are genuinely best suited for the area or provide the most environmental impacts (which may include them needing more individual space to grow, or deeper soil for roots), and this would serve to make the regulations less effective than intended. However, despite these potential problems, it appears that generally, the effects of this change have been positive. Research has shown that this method of biophilic design has actually improved biodiversity and had positive effects on the surrounding urban ecosystems in a relatively short time, leading to suggestions that it should be tried and adapted in other places (Newman, 2013). Notably, the incorporation of biophilic design has also reduced the urban heat island effect in the area, showing that this style of design can have a real impact on its surroundings, to the point where it can partially undo existing harm with correct implementation (Madison, 2019). While it would arguably be best to reduce the use of concrete in construction overall, the fact that eco-Brutalism and biophilic design is having a positive effect on the environment suggests that this iteration of utopia has some weight behind it.

Figure 7 - A beautiful impact of environmentally aware design - greenery and urban centres existing close together and helping each other.

Overall, it is clear that since its conception, Brutalism has been explored with the expectation that it will be the face of something revolutionary. The post-war Labour government that began to commission large scale housing projects and created the NHS clearly had a vision of a society that cared for its citizens in many regards. The fact that Brutalism became the face of these housing projects points to its flexibility and utility, and the creation of projects such as Robin Hood Gardens equally emphasises the ways in which buildings, despite their potentially harsh or divisive appearances, can be empathetically designed with their inhabitants in mind. I feel that in this era, Brutalism was seen as a near utopian style of building that seemed to answer all of the problems of a post-war Britain. Time, along with a tendency to only consider buildings “art” when they are empty, has de-emphasised the importance that these buildings held to the people who called them home. Additionally, this newer iteration of Brutalism also carries a utopian streak - a desire to weave nature right into the fabric of the urban environment in order to off-set the negative effects of our current urban environments and create the style of the future. While a lot of biophilic design often amounts to little more than greenwashing and an attempt to claim sustainability without the work, the real material impact of Singapore’s biophilic regulations show that, when done correctly, ideas like these have weight and can be revolutionary in today’s world. Ultimately, it seems that regardless of the era, Brutalism seems to always find itself becoming the canvas for new and utopian ideas about what the future could be like. While some are more successful than others, what they all have in common is a drive to make the world a better place to live in.

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Figure 8 - The album cover for Brutalism (2017) by IDLES.

This post's thumbnail was inspired by IDLES' Brutalism (2017) album cover. Much like the architectural style it's named after, the album harshly divides opinions, but positive reviews highlight the raw and sharp tone of the album, and one expresses the beautiful sentiment that "this is an album not only inspired by the buildings, but crucially by the people who lived inside them" (Gane, 2017). As this blog post has hopefully expressed, the people who live inside buildings are crucial, and often overlooked.

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Sources:

Anderson, R. Artwashing: The Obscuring of Social Relations in the Brutalist Renaissance. Anthropology of Architecture. https://www.anthropologyofarchitecture.com/new-page-1 

Biophilic Cities. (2013). Singapore. https://www.biophiliccities.org/singapore 

Clement, A. (2018). Brutalism: Post-War British Architecture (2nd edition). The Crowood Press. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/portsmouth-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5523317

Gane, T. (2017, April 5). Raw, Defiant and Agnry: IDLES and the Music of Brutalism. Punktastic. https://www.punktastic.com/radar/raw-defiant-and-angry-idles-and-the-music-of-brutalism/

Imperial War Museum. (2025). Brutalism: The truth behind London’s post-war architecture. https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/brutalism-the-truth-behind-londons-post-war-architecture 

Madison, H. (2019, October 27). Why Singapore Hotels are Tapping Into Biophilic Design. EHL Insights. https://hospitalityinsights.ehl.edu/biophilic-design-singapore 

Newman, P. (2013). Biophilic urbanism: a case study on Singapore. Australian Planner, Volume 51 (Issue 1), pages 47 - 65. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07293682.2013.790832#d1e124 

Powers, A. (2010). Robin Hood Gardens re-visions. London: Twentieth Century Society.

The Art Story. Brutalist Architecture. https://www.theartstory.org/movement/brutalism/ 

The Ethos. (2025, January 25). What Is Eco Brutalism? Is It the Beginning or the End of Sustainable Design? Ethos. https://the-ethos.co/what-is-eco-brutalism/ 

Tong, S., Prior, J., McGregor, G., Shi, X., Kinney, P. (2021). Urban heat: an increasing threat to global health. The BMJ. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8543181/ 

Urban Redevelopment Authority. (2022, November 29). Sports and Recreation - Greenery. https://www.ura.gov.sg/Corporate/Guidelines/Development-Control/Non-Residential/SR/Greenery

Figures:

Figure 1 - Hemingway, W. (2021). Royal Festival Hall. Building Centre. https://90years.buildingcentre.co.uk/building/royal-festival-hall/

Figure 2 - Erect Architecture. (2006). Street Life in Robin Hood Gardens. https://erectarchitecture.co.uk/projects/street-life-robin-hood-gardens/

Figure 3 - Angelopoulou, S. L. (2018, May 24). The V&A Reassembles Robin Hood Gardens Facade at the Venice Biennale. Designboom. https://www.designboom.com/architecture/victoria-and-albert-museum-robin-hood-gardens-venice-biennale-05-24-2018/

Figure 4 - Elengical, J. (2024, August 15). "Brutalist Plants" visually chronicles eco-brutalist aesthetics on a global scale. Stir World. https://www.stirworld.com/think-books-and-movies-brutalist-plants-visually-chronicles-eco-brutalist-aesthetics-on-a-global-scale

Figure 5 - Biophilic Cities. (2013). Singapore. https://www.biophiliccities.org/singapore 

Figure 6 - Biophilic Cities. (2013). Singapore. https://www.biophiliccities.org/singapore 

Figure 7 - Biophilic Cities. (2013). Singapore. https://www.biophiliccities.org/singapore 

Figure 8 - IDLES. (2017). Brutalism [Album]. Partisan Records.