The Brutalists

As seen in The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Forbes, ELLE Decoration, and Design Milk

An unprecedented survey of more than 250 architects who continue to define one of the most polarizing yet celebrated of styles

Brutalist architecture inspires a passionate response, be it adulation or contempt. There is no disputing, however, that the style produces some of the world’s most breathtaking buildings. This landmark volume documents the movement as never before, by profiling the architects behind the style.

Featuring more than 250 historic and contemporary architects (organised alphabetically) along with specially selected examples of their work, this book includes international icons alongside those who are less well known or who have for too long been neglected, providing a unique record of this influential global architecture movement. The book includes 350 stunning images of more than 200 iconic Brutalist buildings, alongside fresh and surprising masterworks from 1936 to the present day, creating the ultimate companion to the Brutalist masters.

Featured architects include: John Andrews; Joăo Batista Vilanova Artigas; Lina Bo Bardi; Bogdan Bogdanović; Marcel Breuer; Douglas Cardinal; André-Jacques Dunoyer de Segonzac; Bertrand Goldberg; Ernő Goldfinger; Jadwiga Grabowska-Hawrylak; Agustín Hernández Navarro; John M. Johansen; Louis I. Kahn; Denys Lasdun; Le Corbusier; Joăo da Gama Filgueiras Lima; Alberto Linner Díaz; Owen Luder; Paulo Mendes da Rocha; Oscar Niemeyer; William L. Pereira; Affonso Eduardo Reidy; Paul Rudolph; Moshe Safdie; Alison Smithson; Clorindo Testa; Decio Tozzi; and John Carl Warnecke

Editorial Reviews

‘An essential guide to this polarising style.’ – Elle Decoration

‘An eye-opening lesson in Brutalism’s variety, creativity, exuberance and, most of all, ambition.’ – Forbes

‘Owen Hopkins’s The Brutalists is an A-to-Z encyclopedia of blocky concrete and utopian ideals.’ – Hyperallergic

‘From international icons to lesser known or neglected Brutalist architects, Hopkins has created a written record of the global movement.’ – Design Milk

‘The pioneers of [Brutalism] and their most famous works have been immortalized in a new Phaidon book.’ – Robb Report

‘Bridging the local and global, this new title from Phaidon documents the movement through more than 200 iconic buildings from around the world.’ – Design Lines Toronto

‘This landmark volume documents [Brutalism] as never before, by profiling the architects behind the style.’ – ASPIRE Design and Home

‘Refreshing in its focus on architects and broad representation.’ – STIR World
– From the Publisher

03/01/2023

Hopkins’s (director, Farrell Ctr. at Newcastle Univ.; Postmodern Architecture: Less Is a Bore) latest work focuses on more than 200 world architects from the 1920s to the present. These architects engaged with different aesthetic and philosophical ideas related to brutalism in varying degrees and for different purposes. They produced works that meet the characteristics of the style, as defined by Reyner Banham in 1955: a memorable image, expressed structure, and building materials, often concrete. Hopkins’s concise but thorough overview of the style in the introductory essay is followed by entries on each architect, with up to four pages each of black-and-white photographs; there’s also a short description of career highlights and a reference to their major brutalist works. In the back of the book, there’s a time line with thumbnails that offers another way to understand the featured buildings. Floorplans could have increased the value of this book to architecture students and other readers. VERDICT Useful as a guide to the architects who defined, spread, and, in some cases, still practice the brutalist style of architecture. Consider for libraries where books on brutalist architecture are popular or for collections in need of a title that introduces the subject.–Amy Trendler
– Library Journal