The Brutalist Southbank

A couple of pics to show where I am volunteering in case you haven't been (and if you haven't you should!)

Above is the Royal Festival Hall. This 'photo is obviously taken in some rather favourable lighting as the South Bank buildings are built in the rather ugly Brutalist style. Below is the Hayward, again designed and built in this concrete jungle style.

(Above is a 'photo I took of the Hayward when I visited the Tracey Emin retrospective)

The Brutalist style of architecture comes from post World War 2, 1950's - 1970's. The design style was an offshoot of the modernist movement and not only included architecture but also popped up in other areas of art and culture. Brutalism was an international thing but particularly took off in the UK where it was used as a cheap way to rebuild war ravaged urban areas and was used as a way to build cheap modern housing. The style was intended to cheers up war torn Britain...not exactly cheerful looking! The style became popular with graffiti artists (makes it a bit more colourful!) I suppose the smooth concrete walls were too tempting! There is a large area underneath the Festival Hall which has now been converted to an area for skaters but there is a lot of graffiti there and it is always changing, I try and take a few photos each time I go past.

I seem to have slated the Brutalist style, but it is a style of architecture that I do in fact like style, the central library in Birmingham is of the same style, they are building a new library next to it, I'm not sure what they plan to do with the current library, I hope they don't knock it down.

Here's a link to an exhibition on brutalist architecture on at the Barbican at the moment...http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/mar/07/barbican-30-years-arts-brutalism