Brutal but beautiful
It was at London zoo which has quite a few skateable spots, the penguin pool looks dope, lovely mellow transitions
Brutal but beautiful
It was at London zoo which has quite a few skateable spots, the penguin pool looks dope, lovely mellow transitions
Yeah when they got it right sure. Sadly there’s a reason why so many brutalist buildings are in disrepair or have been knocked down, I don’t think we’ll ever see a resurgence ![]()
The whole of Birmingham used to be brutaiist, elephant and castle style, but a whole city pretty much. Ugly and grim but very skateable
Totally agree. I was gutted when the tore down the old library. One of my favourite pieces of brutalist architecture. Fun fact, the walk way incorporated into the old library used to have a Hooters.
Yeah brutalism may not be everyone’s cup of tea but at least it was something. Architecture now seems like off the peg IKEA shit
Brutalism is tainted by the fact that so much of it fell into disrepair and then spent decades being useless and ruining people’s daily lives whilst academics and developers wrangled over the rights and wrongs of keeping it vs demolishing it.
So often the people who live with it hate it, but can’t do anything about it. It’s kind of a metaphor for the utopian ideology that drives brutalism. I like the Barbican, but it’s ironic that a building style designed to bring simple functional utility to the masses ends up only being sustainable when it’s situated in London where you have enough rich trendy people to afford the service charges.
There were supposed to be walkways at a height all through that area around Southbank and beyond, but it was never seen through properly making the concept fairly useless. There are bits of it left
Should have been Cumbernauld on Thames!
(The state of it when it was new haha! I just looked up a vid of the place and this popped up)
Where is that!
The first pic? London Zoo. Good luck with that!
On a brutalist / modernist tip
It has a modernist style, reminiscent of a ziggurat. The purpose of this design was to ensure that two thirds of the flats had views in both directions, including towards central London.[5] English Heritage described the estate as having “a striking and original massing that possesses evocative associations with ancient cities and Italian hill towns”.[2]
Those buildings that were properly maintained still look brilliant though. Just look at the Barbican.
If we’re getting into it, check out the signal box at New Street Station. Grace II listed now so no one can fuck with it.
Looked around a flat there once, for a sublet, it was amazing inside, split over 3 floors and the whole place seemed well maintained.
Vibes were off with the guy though so didn’t commit.
There was some crazy stone art fascias in the earlier days, much like something from a nightmare fairground waltzer. The place always gave me Another brick in the wall feelings.
Skated there all the time though, rough as fuck, snapped many a board.
My happy place growing up skating was the local brutalist town hall, it felt like our warm village green. Not a cold, modernism nightmare scape.
Amazing views from up there