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@Fox
Hah, I love concrete, and I love Jonathan Meades. Can't wait till i can Play it.
Spotter put me on to his Essex programme a little while ago, which is utterly brilliant. Especially the first ten minutes, if your attention span is lacking. You can watch it on youtube:
Jonathan Meades - The Joy of Essex (29 January 2013) - YouTube
It made me rediscover Meades which is something I should have done before now, so I've been spending the last six months or so catching up on his back catalogue on and off.
I can absolutely agree with you Oliver that brutalism is a poor label, but that's because what is referred to as brutalism was really functionalist architecture. Brutalism was a pejorative term applied by others. Most of the architects wouldn't have cared about your aesthetic judgements because a functionalist approach dictates a healthy disregard for aesthetics, but to me, as DFP says, beauty is found when form follows function.
As DFP says, when form hasn't followed function, it's all gone a bit wrong:
http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/66/86/668675_f0850cd5.jpg
Ugh.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Money/Pix/pictures/2008/09/26/BarrattDavidSillitoe460.jpg
Ew.
http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Hornby-R279-R-279-Mock-Georgian-House-Kit-/00/s/MTEzMlgxNjAw/z/L4cAAOxyaoFSG6-d/$T2eC16NHJIYFHNp!BZuLBSG6-cnFvg~~60_35.JPG
Yuck.
Give me the unadorned, clean lines of brutalist architecture any day.
And yes, hating on concrete is like hating on steel, or glass. Or wattle.
And show me a man who doesn't like polished concrete, and I'll show you a wrong 'un.