scrapergeek said:
To brand someone a philistine for disliking brutalism is somewhat, um... brutal don't you think?

Or has it suddenly become "cool" to love these old concrete lumps? What's next, a concrete iPhone? :)
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I agree that philistine is a harsh word to use to describe someone who doesn't like the style, however I would not follow that with a generalization that the buildings are concrete 'lumps'.

You don't need to particularly enjoy an architectural style in order to advocate for its preservation; if that was the case, our record of conservation would be a mish-mash of personal opinions, and entirely baseless - not a good position when attempting to justify why buildings ought to be preserved.

Brutalism isn't the easiest style to like, but there are notable buildings (such as Robarts, or the Manulife Centre) that should be protected. Habitat '67 is a great example, as is Place Bonaventure, where the addition of windows, textured concrete and extensive landscaping did wonders for the original design. You don't need to completely strip these buildings - it just takes some creativity, rather than an easy-out approach.
 
scrapergeek said:
To brand someone a philistine for disliking brutalism is somewhat, um... brutal don't you think?

Or has it suddenly become "cool" to love these old concrete lumps?
Click to expand...

If someone dislikes Brutalism after thoughtful consideration, I would not brand them as such. Taste is subjective, after all. But if someone dismisses out of hand an entire (influential, occasionally brilliant) architectural school as "old concrete lumps", and is so ignorant as to think the long-standing arguments over Brutalism's merits can be reduced to "it's suddenly 'cool'"? Well, if the dunce cap fits...
 
Though I can see some of the, uh, "anti" argument re Sutton Place, mostly because it's Brutalism at its most restrained, i.e. a straightforward Modernist shaft with ribbed concrete/n/such in lieu of what might have been glazed brick or some such a few years earlier. And even that's not much of an "anti" argument--you don't just condemn Brutalism simply because it doesn't have Trellick-like "kick" to it. And Sutton Place is a heck of a lot better than a spec-built late 70s "what Brutalism became" case like the thing at the NE corner of Bay + St Mary.

Come to think of it, for all the bad press SP's ground-floor remodelling gets around these parts, I find it to be a lot more restrained--at least, the outside thereof--than PoMo-era reworks typically tend to be...
 
scrapergeek said:
To brand someone a philistine for disliking brutalism is somewhat, um... brutal don't you think?

Or has it suddenly become "cool" to love these old concrete lumps? What's next, a concrete iPhone? :)
Click to expand...

Hahaha, different strokes for different folks ...i personally couldnt care less for any of that brutalist stuff.
 
I'm not a huge fan of brutalism but I can certainly appreciate it when it's done right. More than any other architectural style in the last century (that I can immediately think of), I feel that brutalist buildings present themselves as being unapologetic manifestations of the ideas and an ideals of their time and place. They represented a new way of conceptualizing society and they were bold and honest attempts to express that (Utopian) concept in form and structure. They're cultural markers, and therefore historically relevant.

Some might call them dated, but what does that mean? It means that they were so clearly representative of a certain time and place (and hence the ideas existing in that time and place) that one immediately associates them with that specific era. That is not an inherently negative thing.

It becomes much easier to appreciate them once you know just what they were trying to express.
 
I agree with Tulse. I happen to like Manulife Centre and the Sheraton Centre. And I love Robarts. In fact, I'm pretty sure Robarts is from the future.

But Sutton Place doesn't do much for me. That said, neither does the redesign. I feel like there's a better design possible.
 
Oliver Tweed said:
But Sutton Place doesn't do much for me. That said, neither does the redesign. I feel like there's a better design possible.
Click to expand...

Well, as I said--it's restrained. A slab. Not that that's bad or anything.

Which means that the redesign has less to do with the existing "Brutalism", than the existing "datedness"--and as those of us into that preservation thang'll tell you, abrupt judgments of "dated" are The Enemy Out There...
 
@buzzbuzzhome is reporting that this will be marketed as the Britt condo....there is a rendering of the lobby....

2012_07_04_04_31_47_lobby.png
 
Yeah, from the poposed exterior I didn't expect that Robert Stern wannabe inside...
 
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