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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck Bence

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Speaker 1: here sitting in for Jerry, which we're all very happy about. Frankly,

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Speaker 1: that's our preference. And this is stuff I'm kidding, and

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Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know.

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Speaker 2: It's been a while since you bagged on Jerry for

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Speaker 2: no reason.

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Speaker 1: I know things have felt weird. Now I just reset

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Speaker 1: them again.

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Speaker 2: I'm excited about this one. This is another if you're

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Speaker 2: listening at home, we would really encourage you to try

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Speaker 2: and follow along by looking up some photographs of some

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Speaker 2: of the things we mentioned, because obviously we're talking about

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Speaker 2: a design style of architecture, and those are always better

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Speaker 2: when you can see some of this stuff and do

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Speaker 2: so safely.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's really difficult to describe a building in

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Speaker 1: any really good terms, you know, or any way that

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Speaker 1: you're just like, oh, I don't even need to see

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Speaker 1: the picture of it. I totally got what you're saying.

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Speaker 2: But we still try.

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Speaker 1: We definitely still try, and probably of all the architecture

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Speaker 1: there is, brutalist might be the easiest to describe without

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Speaker 1: looking at it.

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Speaker 2: Maybe true, But then when you look at brutalist things,

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Speaker 2: there's so much variety within that category.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And if you hadn't guessed by now we're

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Speaker 1: talking about brutalism, if you didn't pick up from that

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Speaker 1: exchange we just had or the title of this episode

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Speaker 1: and brutalist architecture, even if you don't know what it is,

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Speaker 1: you have almost certainly witnessed it, maybe even been inside

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Speaker 1: a brutalist building, because they're very often public buildings, as

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Speaker 1: we'll see, And brutalism is probably the most reviled, misunderstood,

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Speaker 1: hated architecture of all time. It's just so easy to

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Speaker 1: hate it, and so many people hate it for so

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Speaker 1: many different, sometimes really weird reasons. But there also seems

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Speaker 1: to be a renaissance and appreciating brutalism which is arriving

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Speaker 1: just in time, because brutalist buildings are in really grave

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Speaker 1: danger being torn down and erased from architectural history all

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Speaker 1: over the world.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I learned a cool thing today which I

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Speaker 2: never knew before. And I thought about this when I

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Speaker 2: was in Mexico City, which has a lot of great

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Speaker 2: brutalist architecture. Yeah, including I mean that airport's got to

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Speaker 2: be brutalist.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, as a matter of fact, it's got to be.

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Speaker 1: I think it is. I didn't see that. It didn't

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Speaker 1: come up in my research, but yes, Mexico City has

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Speaker 1: a ton of good brutalism.

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Speaker 2: But when I was there, I noticed some things and

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Speaker 2: I was like, and I saw a couple like sort

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Speaker 2: of that echoed sort of pyramid style brutalism, and I

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Speaker 2: was like, wait a minute. I was like, these look

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Speaker 2: like ancient mind temples, and if you look up like

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Speaker 2: an ancient Mayan temple or it goes visit one like

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Speaker 2: it's a totally brutalist thing. But I learned that apparently,

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Speaker 2: originally these temples were very ornate. I saw. I can't

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Speaker 2: remember where I got this, but I said, they were

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Speaker 2: as ornate as any neoclassical edifice in Europe. But they've

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Speaker 2: been stripped down over the years from war and looting

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Speaker 2: and just time, and they became brutalist in the end.

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Speaker 1: Huh weird. That's fantastic and totally surprising.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so they weren't originally built that way. But when

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Speaker 2: you look at a mine temple compared to like some

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Speaker 2: of these other you know, like office buildings, I'm like,

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Speaker 2: you say this was came around in like England in

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Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties, and I say it came around long

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Speaker 2: before that.

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Speaker 1: So you hit upon something though that like these these

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Speaker 1: mine temples are brutalist now, but they weren't before because

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Speaker 1: they've been stripped of their decoration or whatever. That is brutalism.

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Speaker 1: It's a type of architecture that from its outset, from

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Speaker 1: the creation of the building, from design onward, it's meant

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Speaker 1: to not have ornamentation. It's the it's the skeleton of

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Speaker 1: the building, is the building. That's what brutalism is, or

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Speaker 1: at least in part.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And if you've ever and like we said, we'll

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Speaker 2: get into some of the variety within the style, but

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Speaker 2: if you've ever seen a like a huge concrete, unfinished

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Speaker 2: sort of concrete looking government building with the same little

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Speaker 2: tiny windows and it just looks like this blocky monolith, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that is brutalism staring you in the face.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. If you look at a building and suddenly Stalin

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Speaker 1: just comes into your head, you're looking at a brutalist

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Speaker 1: building almost certainly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Or if you wonder what evil villains layer that is,

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Speaker 2: it's probably a brutalist building.

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Speaker 1: Right, exactly. I also had a brutalist epiphany in Mexico

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Speaker 1: City recently. When we were down there. We went to

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Speaker 1: one of the museums and they were having a brutalism exhibit,

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Speaker 1: and it completely reversed my feelings about brutalism. I walked

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Speaker 1: into that exhibit hating brutalism, and I walked out really

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Speaker 1: appreciating it. And it turns out I didn't actually hate

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Speaker 1: brutalism all this time. I hate ugly buildings, ugly, thoughtless, dumb,

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Speaker 1: boring buildings, and that is not Brutalism is not synonymous

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Speaker 1: with that. It's gotten a bad name over the years,

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Speaker 1: and part of it is even the name itself brutalism.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people think that the whole term was

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Speaker 1: coined to describe like how the building makes you feel

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Speaker 1: when you look at it. It's brutal, it's sharp, it's merciless,

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Speaker 1: has zero compassion, it's dehumanizing. That's not what the term

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Speaker 1: brutalism means at all. It actually refers to a type

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Speaker 1: of concrete that the French architect and designer the Corbussier

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Speaker 1: introduced called beton brute.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, beton brute. I think the exact English translation is

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Speaker 2: gross cement exactly.

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Speaker 1: But they call it raw concrete.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, which is to say, just a raw, unfinished,

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Speaker 2: poored concrete. There are a lot of houses in our

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Speaker 2: surrounding neighborhoods in Atlanta now that are being built sort

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Speaker 2: of in this style, these huge, big concrete, blocky houses

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Speaker 2: that are I think it's sort of a mishmash. It

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Speaker 2: definitely echoes brutalism, but most of them still have a

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Speaker 2: polished sort of concrete look to them, and that is

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Speaker 2: not true true brutalism.

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Speaker 1: No, And it's there's a lot of overlap between modernism

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Speaker 1: and brutalism. They both were they both were going on

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Speaker 1: at the same time. And some people say that brutalism

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Speaker 1: emerged out of modernism. There's a big old that's a

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Speaker 1: hornousness that we're not going to get into. But just

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Speaker 1: using exposed unfinished concrete is not in and of itself

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Speaker 1: a brutalist building. There's other elements as well that come

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Speaker 1: into Yeah.

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Speaker 2: But I think an interesting thing is brutalism, isn't I mean,

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Speaker 2: you know, and you see it, but it's it's something

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Speaker 2: that I saw this. I think it was a new

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Speaker 2: York Times article that said it has always sort of

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Speaker 2: lacked a really clear, well articulated set of principles.

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Speaker 1: I saw that. I didn't agree with that. I thought

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Speaker 1: it was very articulated.

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Speaker 2: Oh well, I think the I think what it means

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Speaker 2: more is it there's there's so much variety within those principles.

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Speaker 2: You can't say it's just this, because depending on what

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Speaker 2: region you are in the world, the brutalist architecture is

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Speaker 2: going to look different, whether it's you know, Soviet Russia

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Speaker 2: or postwar London, or in Brazil and Latin America. Brutalism

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Speaker 2: grew out of the modernist tradition, so stuff there looks

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Speaker 2: quite a bit different than it does in other parts

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Speaker 2: of the world.

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Speaker 1: It does. I think that they all share in common

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Speaker 1: a core set of principles that is brutalism. That that's

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Speaker 1: what I disagree with. I know that there's differences in

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Speaker 1: all that. I just I just I didn't agree with

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Speaker 1: that statement that the New York Times got it wrong, wrong, wrong.

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Speaker 2: I'm with them. I'm down the paper record.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about where this came from.

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Speaker 2: Huh yeah, well, I mean, you know, it came out

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Speaker 2: of the post war architectural rebuilding of so many cities

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Speaker 2: around the world that were completely destroyed into rubble, and

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Speaker 2: in particular this one couple, Peter and Allison Smithson in England,

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Speaker 2: saw bombed out London and instead of seeing you know,

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Speaker 2: a big bombed out mess where like, oh, we have

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Speaker 2: to rebuild it, you know, more ornate and grander than before,

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Speaker 2: they saw an opportunity and were inspired and said, why

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Speaker 2: don't we start using this rubble and build some sort

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Speaker 2: of unfinished looking places.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's almost like they visually speaking they used

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Speaker 1: the rubble as the material to build the new buildings

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Speaker 1: and they didn't actually use that, but visually speaking they

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Speaker 1: did that, and it was, like you said, in an

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Speaker 1: acceptance of the current reality rather than a return to

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Speaker 1: a previous reality, which is radical in and of itself,

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Speaker 1: but that was the essentially. The Smithsons are credited with

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Speaker 1: establishing brutalism as an architectural movement very frequently there. A

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Speaker 1: critic named Rayner Banham is credited with coining the term

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Speaker 1: brutalism that's wrong. He popularized it in a review of

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Speaker 1: the Smithson's work. The Smithson's used it a couple of

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Speaker 1: years before Bannam did, and a couple of years before that,

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Speaker 1: a Swedish architect named Hans Asplind used it to describe

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Speaker 1: a home that he designed an Uppsala called Via goth

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Speaker 1: in nineteen forty nine. So at least as far back

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Speaker 1: as nineteen forty nine the term brutalism was being used.

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Speaker 1: But you kind of dug up and you had said

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Speaker 1: at the outset evidence that brutalism was around before that

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Speaker 1: term was ever used.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I mean I think clearly they were inspired,

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Speaker 2: inspired by stuff that came before them, maybe by mind

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Speaker 2: temples and things like that, but no one was calling

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Speaker 2: it brutalist obviously until then. And I don't think it

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Speaker 2: was like a bonafide, a bona fide architectural movement until

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Speaker 2: the post war, you know, sort of rebuilding.

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Speaker 1: Right, and post war, because of all the rebuilding that

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Speaker 1: was going on, brutalism was widely adopted across Europe, not

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Speaker 1: just in the West but also in the Eastern Bloc

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Speaker 1: because World War two just ravaged that continent and so

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Speaker 1: a lot of countries had a lot of cities that

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Speaker 1: needed to be rebuilt largely, and not just in Europe

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Speaker 1: in Japan, particularly in Okinawa. Supposedly ten to twenty percent

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Speaker 1: of the buildings that were around before World War Two

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Speaker 1: were still around after as much as ninety percent of

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Speaker 1: the buildings were destroyed, so they had a lot of

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Speaker 1: rebuilding to do, and it just so happened at the

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Speaker 1: time brutalism was this new kind of up coming, frankly

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Speaker 1: beloved style of architecture. So it happened to be in

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Speaker 1: the right place at the right time to become adopted

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Speaker 1: around the world because all this rebuilding was going on.

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Speaker 1: But the timing isn't the full explanation of the whole thing,

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Speaker 1: is it? Is it?

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Speaker 2: No, No, it's not. Because it was also a time

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Speaker 2: where in the sort of the fifties through the seventies

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Speaker 2: where the European nations that had colonized the world, that

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Speaker 2: stuff started sort of going back the other way, and

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Speaker 2: these countries were even either given their country back or

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Speaker 2: they were flourishing. So in Latin America all of a

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Speaker 2: sudden there was sort of a new prosperity going on.

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Speaker 2: In Africa, there was you know, some of them were

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Speaker 2: gaining independence, and so it all timed out with brutalism.

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Speaker 2: So that's why you'll see like brutalism in Africa and

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Speaker 2: brutalism in Latin America and brutalism in Japan. It's really interesting.

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Speaker 1: The thing is, though, is we said that Modernism was

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Speaker 1: in full swing same time, so you could say, well,

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Speaker 1: why didn't they just choose modernism instead, And you know,

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Speaker 1: a lot of them did. A lot of Modernist buildings

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Speaker 1: were built in these same cities around the same time.

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Speaker 1: But the reason brutalism truly became so ubiquitous around the

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Speaker 1: world is because it was cheap. It was really cheap

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Speaker 1: to make a brutalist building because they were essentially poured

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Speaker 1: or slab concrete. There was no adornment to them. There.

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Speaker 1: They were as we'll see, Brutalism takes a single unit

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Speaker 1: very often like a like the smallest unit like a

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Speaker 1: Saint apartment, and then redoes it over and over and

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Speaker 1: over again. So there's a standardization of the process of

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Speaker 1: the materials. So it just was. It was around the time,

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Speaker 1: and it was a very cheap alternative to other much

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Speaker 1: more ornate types of buildings like modernist buildings at the time,

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Speaker 1: So that was one reason why it was so widely adopted.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and with that repeating thing, I mean, it can

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Speaker 2: even just be like, well, like that airport in Mexico

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Speaker 2: City with the circles, or what was the one the

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Speaker 2: French guy like his very the habitat.

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Speaker 1: The United Bitasion.

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Speaker 2: Look, yeah, I mean if you look at that, that's

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Speaker 2: another great example of these. You know, I guess they're windows.

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Speaker 2: What are they?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? I think they're balconies or like patios.

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Speaker 2: Oh okay, it's hard to tell from like a distance,

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Speaker 2: but it's just this repeated thing, and that's there's obviously

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Speaker 2: a building efficiency when you're not adorning things and we're

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Speaker 2: kind of repeating the same design feature over and over

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Speaker 2: and over. Also, this is a time post war where

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Speaker 2: people really started moving to the cities a lot more,

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Speaker 2: especially in the Eastern Block. It's cheap. It was a

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Speaker 2: cheap way to house tons of people as far as

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Speaker 2: the US goes. That's when the federal government really beefed

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Speaker 2: up and said, all right, we're going to be we're

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Speaker 2: gonna take some steroids here and see what happens. And

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Speaker 2: so all of a udd and you had a much

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Speaker 2: larger bureaucracy and these they needed, you know, there were

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Speaker 2: more people, more employees, and say need of these big

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Speaker 2: federal government buildings. So you'll see a lot of some

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Speaker 2: of the best brutalist architecture in American cities could be

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Speaker 2: like the City Library like here in Atlanta, or like

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Speaker 2: the IRS building or something like these big government buildings.

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Speaker 1: Also, one of the reasons brutalism was such a great

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Speaker 1: idea for government buildings is because they're so stable and

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Speaker 1: they're so just yeah, immovable, And so the designers were like, well,

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Speaker 1: it's going to remind people that the government is stable

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Speaker 1: and you don't have to worry because the government's in control.

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Speaker 1: Just look at the buildings that they operate out of.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. DC has a lot of brutalist stuff.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yes, it's a brutalist town. If you want to

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Speaker 1: acquaint yourself with brutalist architecture, just walk around d C

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Speaker 1: and look at the federal buildings. They are brutalists through

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Speaker 1: and through.

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Speaker 2: Should we take a break, but I say we take

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Speaker 2: a break? Yeah, all right, because we need to go

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Speaker 2: to Washington, d C.

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Speaker 3: And apologize.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, I didn't understand. Why do we have to

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Speaker 1: apologize to DC?

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Speaker 2: I don't know. It sounded like you were saying, I

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Speaker 2: know you appreciate brutalism now, but it sounded like you

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Speaker 2: didn't have much love for the DC style of brutalism.

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Speaker 1: No, it's not that I've always appreciated DC because it's

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Speaker 1: just so weird architecturally, isn't it that nothing can be

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Speaker 1: taller than the Washington Monument. That's why there's no skyscrapers

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Speaker 1: in DC. I think I've heard that the Monument or

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Speaker 1: the Capitol Building one of the two. So yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: a very low slong city. But that also is ready

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Speaker 1: made for brutalist design too, because they're often like low, wide,

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Speaker 1: hulking forms as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you're never going to see a brutalist tower.

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Speaker 1: That's not true. There are some brutalist towers, but they're

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Speaker 1: very rare, very very rare.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean I've seen some skinnyish apartment buildings

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Speaker 2: and things, but I guess I don't know. I'm thinking

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Speaker 2: in terms of like skyscrapers.

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Speaker 1: Well, do they have those the skyscrapers that we think

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Speaker 1: of when we think of the cities today, those kind

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Speaker 1: of came along and replaced brutalism and starting around the eighties. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so no, you wouldn't have seen that as brutalist because

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Speaker 1: it's just wasn't brutalist.

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Speaker 2: So it's not all concrete all the time. It's obviously

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Speaker 2: a very big part that unfinished concrete of brutalism. But

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Speaker 2: you might see a little brick in there every now

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Speaker 2: and then, probably not going to be like some super

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Speaker 2: colorful thing. You'll probably see some steel, ill obviously some

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Speaker 2: glass I have seen, you know, and especially in Brazil

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Speaker 2: and Latin America out of the modernist movement incorporating wood,

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Speaker 2: and I'm a big fan of of like combining like

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Speaker 2: cement and wood and natural things like that, natural elements

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Speaker 2: with unnatural elements.

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Speaker 1: So that's the new that's the new thing. That's brand

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Speaker 1: spanking new. They call it organic brutalism, which is combining

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Speaker 1: like a brutalist space with like organic touches to it. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you'd love that. So even though it's I don't even

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Speaker 1: know if you can't say that it's not all concrete

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Speaker 1: all the time. I think one of the basis of

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Speaker 1: brutalism is that it's got to be concrete, right Or

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Speaker 1: are you saying like other people have experimented with other

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Speaker 1: stuff and still consider brutalist.

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Speaker 2: No, no, no, I just mean like that every square

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Speaker 2: inchoa gotch isn't concrete.

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Speaker 1: But that it features very, very prominently. One of the

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Speaker 1: things that, yeah, one of the things about this these

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Speaker 1: reinforced concrete buildings is because they were using just unfinished

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Speaker 1: concrete or you know, unadorned concrete, they figured out interesting

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Speaker 1: ways to kind of play with the concrete so that

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Speaker 1: every building didn't look exactly alike. So you'll often see

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Speaker 1: like vertical ripples going down long tall columns that's a

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Speaker 1: type of concrete. They'll be like aggregate, like maybe pebbles

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Speaker 1: that are on the surface of the concrete. There's all

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Speaker 1: sorts of stuff they did. But if at the end

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Speaker 1: of the day it's all reinforced concrete and there's not

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Speaker 1: like drywall over it, there's not like a nice paint

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Speaker 1: job over it, there's no decorations or any kind of

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Speaker 1: like woodwork or anything like that. It's just right the

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Speaker 1: building itself. The point of brutalism is the building itself

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Speaker 1: is allowed to stand on its own. And I saw

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Speaker 1: somewhere that somebody said that if modernism is meant to

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Speaker 1: be honest, then brutalism is brutally honest. Like what you

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Speaker 1: see is what you get with the building.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I like that.

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Speaker 1: I do too.

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Speaker 2: They like you said, there's a uh, there's a sense

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Speaker 2: of permanence to a brutalist building. And I think that's

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Speaker 2: another reason why government buildings like them, because, like you mentioned,

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Speaker 2: they just sort of convey this thing of like, I

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Speaker 2: know you hate banger taxes, but look at this IRS building.

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Speaker 2: It's not going anywhere, right, It sends a message, it

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Speaker 2: says ts.

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Speaker 1: There's some other like basic parts of the brutalist concept.

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Speaker 1: Chuck like that. The buildings tend to be angular, geometric, sculptural, blocky,

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Speaker 1: top heavy. The windows are very frequently deep set. They're

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Speaker 1: called fortress like. I don't know if you mentioned that

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Speaker 1: one before, but it pops up almost everywhere when you're

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Speaker 1: talking about what brutalism is. Fortress like seems to be

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Speaker 1: like a very like just a common description. And then

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Speaker 1: we talked about them being self repeating.

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Speaker 2: Right yeah, yeah, and that was you know the reason why,

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Speaker 2: because the efficiencies and the costs.

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Speaker 1: Right. So sometimes some brutalist buildings will take like the

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Speaker 1: single unit, like say it's an apartment building, and they

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Speaker 1: will take the they'll design the one apartment building and

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Speaker 1: they just repeat it over and over and over again,

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Speaker 1: and then the next row over and over and over again.

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Speaker 1: And by combining these modular units together, they it forms

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Speaker 1: the building just through repetition. And so some people call

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Speaker 1: it a fractal as far as architectural movements go, which

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Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, I appreciate it a lot, and

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Speaker 2: I always have. But I get why people don't like

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Speaker 2: a lot of these buildings. And I think that maybe,

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Speaker 2: like you, previous to Mexico City only had in the

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Speaker 2: in the brain like sort of one thing, which is God,

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Speaker 2: that ugly building downtown that I have to go to

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Speaker 2: get my driver's license or something exactly, and to expose

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Speaker 2: yourself to more. And you know, we're gonna talk about

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Speaker 2: some famous buildings, but you know, brutalism had a sort

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Speaker 2: of a pre hatred going on before it even became

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Speaker 2: a thing. The people that were I believe that was

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Speaker 2: La Corbusier's how do you pronounce this building again?

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Speaker 1: The unite do pitasion? That's right, I think so my

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Speaker 1: high school friends can hold up.

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Speaker 2: He designed this thing for working class families to house

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Speaker 2: a lot of people, which was the whole idea, but

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Speaker 2: no one wanted to live there. None of those people

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Speaker 2: wanted to live there, so the intelligentsia of Marseille was like,

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Speaker 2: you know, they appreciated that architecture, and there.

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Speaker 1: Who moved in, right, they said sold.

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Speaker 2: I also think it's interesting that they have been used

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Speaker 2: in a lot of as the one here that I

383
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Speaker 2: sent you in Georgia that is so cool looking, of

384
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Speaker 2: all places, Noon in Georgia was used, as I believe

385
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Speaker 2: in ant Man and the Wasp, as the evil villain's

386
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Speaker 2: layer from the outside and clockwork orange, and like just

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Speaker 2: this associate with evil villains or the bad guys or

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Speaker 2: the communist Soviet block. It just sort of always had

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Speaker 2: this reputation of like, you should probably hate this architecture.

390
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Speaker 1: Also dystopian too, Like if you ever watch a movie

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Speaker 1: or look at artwork set in a dystopia, if you

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Speaker 1: look at the buildings, they are almost always brutalist in

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Speaker 1: some way should perform often very frankly brutalist, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And it kind of makes sense because a lot of

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Speaker 1: times dystopian settings are well they're set in the future,

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Speaker 1: or that maybe they're post apocalyptic. Yeah, yeah, And it

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Speaker 1: makes sense that if any kind of buildings is going

398
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Speaker 1: to survive a brutalist building would survive far into the

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Speaker 1: future or would survive in apocalypse, So it makes sense intuitively,

400
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Speaker 1: But also I think brutalism gets used in that because

401
00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:57,040
Speaker 1: it's so associated with things like dehumanization depersonalization, that the

402
00:22:57,080 --> 00:23:00,480
Speaker 1: scales that they're built on are inhuman scales. And that's

403
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Speaker 1: ironic because again, most of the brutalist buildings that were

404
00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:06,840
Speaker 1: ever built were meant to be public buildings where you

405
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Speaker 1: bring a lot of people together to do things like

406
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Speaker 1: enjoy a ballet or a show or performance, or to

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Speaker 1: live together as a community in like a tower or

408
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Speaker 1: something like that, and yet they're The irony of it

409
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Speaker 1: is that they're viewed as inhuman dehumanizing rather than humanizing,

410
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Speaker 1: which is I think what they were after. But it

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Speaker 1: just over time, it just became associated with the opposite

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Speaker 1: of that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And you know, if you have an

414
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Speaker 2: evil villain in your movie, you're not going to put

415
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Speaker 2: them in a in a quaint cottage.

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Speaker 1: Well maybe if they're on vacation and it's like a rental.

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Speaker 2: One of my favorite examples of brutalism as a bad

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Speaker 2: guy's place is in Karate Kid three, which I watched

419
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Speaker 2: it when it came out, and I clearly hadn't watched

420
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Speaker 2: it since because I'd forgotten all about it, and we

421
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Speaker 2: watched it on vacation last year, and it is one

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Speaker 2: of the most wonderfully awful movies I've ever seen. One

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Speaker 2: of those bad movies that's a lot of fun to watch.

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Speaker 1: Is that the one with Hillary Swank?

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Speaker 2: No? No, that is I think the next karate Kid.

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Speaker 2: Karate Kid three was the third of the you know,

427
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Speaker 2: Daniel and Mister Miagi tail where he battled the bad

428
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Speaker 2: guy Terry Silver, who was I think he was a

429
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Speaker 2: Vietnam buddy of what's his name?

430
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Speaker 1: I can't remember from the from the first one.

431
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Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, yeah, So Terry Silver's place is the ultimate

432
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Speaker 2: brutalist bad guy lair, and it is the Ennis House

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Speaker 2: in Los Angeles that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

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00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:46,160
Speaker 1: Is that the Hell House or Hillhouse?

435
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:49,919
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean it's called the N's House.

436
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 1: Because I've been at some Frank Lloyd Wright houses in

437
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:55,440
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and they're pretty awesome.

438
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:58,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, he's He definitely was not known as

439
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 2: the brutalist architect, but there are a handful of his

440
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:06,639
Speaker 2: designs and if you look at Ennis House, it is

441
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 2: like like super brutalist. And then when I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma,

442
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 2: I saw the the West Hope House in Tulsa. Frank

443
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 2: Lloyd right, Also, I think, if not purely brutalist, fairly brutalist.

444
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:25,760
Speaker 2: And then like you look at the Guggenheim, the Guggenheim

445
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 2: is sort of brutalist as well.

446
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:28,120
Speaker 1: Right.

447
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 2: I don't know if you could call it if you're

448
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 2: a brutalist purist, a purialist. Jeez, if you would count

449
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 2: the Guggenheim, because it's the concrete is much more smooth,

450
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 2: but it's not not brutalist, you know.

451
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,920
Speaker 1: No, And I was mistaken. It's not Hill House. It's

452
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:47,439
Speaker 1: the house on Haunted Hill is what that that Ennis

453
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: House stood in for. But it is super brutalist. And

454
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 1: it's funny because you had mentioned that the Mayan architecture

455
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:58,920
Speaker 1: seems brutalist now, but it wasn't originally. It very much echoes. Yeah,

456
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 1: some sort of mezzo American architecture, almost like a mishmash

457
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 1: of it.

458
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, but it's you know, this is sort

459
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 2: of what I was getting at, Like all of these

460
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:13,600
Speaker 2: reasons that people hate brutalism is why we are losing

461
00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 2: so many great brutalist buildings in the world. It's not

462
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:19,400
Speaker 2: a hard sell to tear these things down a lot

463
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 2: of times in a city.

464
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: No, And I have to say one other thing, the

465
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 1: hatred of brutalism also is sometimes associated, depending on your

466
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:34,159
Speaker 1: political beliefs, it's associated with the welfare state, because so

467
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 1: many were built as public housing. And so if you were, say,

468
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:42,880
Speaker 1: you know, right leaning, or probably very far to the right,

469
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 1: you hate brutalism for that very reason. And it also

470
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:49,919
Speaker 1: is no coincidence that the era of brutalism ended abruptly

471
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:53,399
Speaker 1: at nineteen eighty, which is the time when Reagan and

472
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 1: Thatcher came to power and the welfare state was like, nope,

473
00:26:57,160 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 1: no more welfare state, or we're going to cut it

474
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: so early that we're certainly not going to invest in

475
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 1: any brutalist architecture any longer. And it became associated not

476
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:09,320
Speaker 1: just with totalitarian governments of the Eastern Bloc here in

477
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:12,640
Speaker 1: the United States, it also became associated on the right

478
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 1: with welfare. And the right doesn't really like welfare very much,

479
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:19,919
Speaker 1: so they don't like brutalist architecture. Isn't that interesting?

480
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, super like they were looked at as blits a

481
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 2: lot of times.

482
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:26,399
Speaker 1: Well, they became that way too, and that's that's another

483
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,600
Speaker 1: reason why that they're they're under such attack. They show

484
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:31,479
Speaker 1: their age pretty pretty poorly.

485
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:36,760
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, over the years because they're not adorned, because

486
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:40,240
Speaker 2: they have that rough concrete finish, water damage can happen

487
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 2: a lot to cake can be really more evident. I

488
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:47,200
Speaker 2: think that Paul Rudolph, he's a and when you say,

489
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 2: you know famous brutalist architect is you got to be

490
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:52,439
Speaker 2: in the know to kind of know these names.

491
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:52,880
Speaker 1: Right.

492
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:56,320
Speaker 2: It's not like a Frank Lloyd, right, But Paul Rudolph's

493
00:27:56,320 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 2: Orange County Government Center in Gosha, New York was torn down.

494
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:03,679
Speaker 2: If you look this thing up, it is amazing looking.

495
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:06,399
Speaker 1: Yeah. I became a fan of Paul Rudolph's researching this.

496
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: I'd never heard of him before, but he was good.

497
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 2: That building is unbelievable. But they tore it down. And

498
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:13,880
Speaker 2: it wasn't just because like, oh look at this big

499
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 2: blockie thing, but apparently it leaked from day one. There

500
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:22,200
Speaker 2: was constant mold, there were always water issues. They were

501
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 2: having to closed courtrooms and move them around. And they

502
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 2: just did a cost study and it was like, retrofitting

503
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 2: and making this thing a workable government center isn't even feasible,

504
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 2: so they tore it down.

505
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: So I had a hard time getting to the bottom

506
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: of this because I saw plenty of places that it

507
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:41,720
Speaker 1: was torn down. I also saw that it was going

508
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 1: to be torn down, but they decided to do a

509
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 1: retrofit or a rehab of it instead, and that the update,

510
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: the refresh of it was so faithless to the original

511
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 1: that it's no longer a brutalist building. I saw it

512
00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:57,959
Speaker 1: described as disfigured.

513
00:28:59,240 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 2: Interesting.

514
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, but either way, Paul Rudolph seems to be I

515
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:08,719
Speaker 1: think arch mag called him the unluckiest architect ever. Arc

516
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 1: mag Is it arc or.

517
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 2: Arch Is it architecture?

518
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: Well, why don't you just call it arc mag? Then

519
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 1: why do you have to add the H and make

520
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: me look stupid in front of everybody.

521
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 2: I'm with you, I think it's kind of an awkward name.

522
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: Well, anyway, arc Slash arch Mag called him the unluckiest

523
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:35,840
Speaker 1: architect around because so many of Paul Rudolph's buildings are

524
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 1: just being torn down left and right, and I don't

525
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 1: even know that it's a distinct dislike of Paul Rudolph's work.

526
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: I think it's just people are tearing brutalist buildings down,

527
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 1: and his happened to be being torn down at a

528
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: faster rate than other architects brutalist buildings.

529
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 2: And I know we're going to get email from someone

530
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 2: who works at that magazine that's like Chuck didn't know

531
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 2: what he's talking about. We call it arc mag right exactly,

532
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 2: Chocha's right mag Other buildings. Architect named Bertrand Goldberg designed

533
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 2: the Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago that was torn down. Yeah,

534
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 2: it was gorgeous.

535
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, how are you going to look at that and

536
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 1: be like that's an ugly building. It was a a

537
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: elevated clover made of concrete. It was. It was gorgeous

538
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 1: for sure, And at the very least, even if you

539
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 1: don't think these buildings are gorgeous, I get that, but

540
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:32,240
Speaker 1: they're they're they're admirable for sure, like they're they're amazing

541
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: achievements for sure. I just don't think that they're ugly

542
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 1: across the board. I think there's plenty of amazing brutalist buildings.

543
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 2: Out there, oh totally. It also doesn't help that and

544
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 2: I think you found stuff from Jessica Stewart in My

545
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 2: Modern met and Bigonia BESCO's great name in Arca magazine.

546
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 2: That's a lot easier that they both talked about the

547
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 2: fact that these are basically that they can be kind

548
00:30:56,560 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 2: of a symbol of human abandonment, as what they said

549
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 2: in Arkham magazine. And if it starts to decay, it's

550
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 2: got these big, open bear concrete walls, so like obviously vandalism,

551
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 2: it's just gonna be. It's a it's a perfect canvas

552
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:15,280
Speaker 2: for something like that. And I think Jessica Stewart's the

553
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 2: one that said they you know, they basically symbolized urban

554
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:21,960
Speaker 2: decay at one point, and economic economic hardship.

555
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, that failure of the welfare state. And because

556
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 1: they show their neglects so readily, because they're unadorned, because

557
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 1: they're exposed concrete, they stood as symbols of like, yeah, look,

558
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:37,000
Speaker 1: how look how what a bad idea welfare is? Like

559
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: it's just like this building is like a symbol of that.

560
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 1: And by the way I've I've been pronouncing it ersa magazine.

561
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: Oh is that not right?

562
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 2: All right, we should take a break. We're gonna call

563
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 2: these magazines up and get get the record set straight

564
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:55,080
Speaker 2: and then we'll be right back after this.

565
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 1: So, Chuck, I'm glad you said Paul Rudolph's Orange County

566
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 1: Government Center was in Goshen, New York, because I definitely

567
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: would have said, gosh and no joke. And just want

568
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:33,239
Speaker 1: to say one more thing about that it had. It

569
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: was made of three buildings. It had eighty seven roofs.

570
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 1: Just wrap your head around that for a second, right exactly,

571
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 1: But that's just just wonderful. Look up some of Paul

572
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 1: Rudolph's work and you're gonna be like, this is super

573
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 1: seventy's awesomeness. Like that guy was talented.

574
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:54,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I think a lot of Frankloyd writes stuff

575
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 2: leaked though as well.

576
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was very famous for like some guy he

577
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: designed a house for said the roof is leaking on

578
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: my desk, and Frank Floyd right, so move the desk

579
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:06,120
Speaker 1: if you ask me, these guys get way too much

580
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 1: of a pass, like, because part of architecture is to

581
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 1: make a building that doesn't leak too In addition to

582
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: making it awesome, it's.

583
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:15,920
Speaker 2: Got to function as a as a place to live

584
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:16,600
Speaker 2: in or work in.

585
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 1: Exactly when we were in Mexico City. We went with

586
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: our two friends Mitch and Patrick, who are architects and designers,

587
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: and I was explaining that to them too, and they're like, yeah,

588
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 1: it's absolutely true. I was expecting pushback or whatever. They're like, no, no,

589
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:33,719
Speaker 1: like they people. People do give famous architects way too

590
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 1: much of a pass, especially former legendary ones. Hopefully I

591
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: didn't just get Mitch and Patrick in trouble.

592
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 2: I don't think. So. Okay, they're out of the they're

593
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 2: out of the club now, right. So if you're as

594
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 2: far as brutalism coming back, it is coming back in

595
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 2: certain ways. They're they're definitely. Even if you don't have

596
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:56,400
Speaker 2: like a let let's say you have like a modern house,

597
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 2: or even not a modern house, you can decorate interior

598
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 2: in a little bit more brutalish style, and you know,

599
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 2: sometimes just a touch or two of that kind of

600
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 2: thing can really give you what you're looking for.

601
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of that. Our house stuff

602
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: Works office used to be I guess new brutalist interior design.

603
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 1: It kind of chucked the boxes. I was never comfortable

604
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:22,919
Speaker 1: there now.

605
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 2: I mean, isn't every office that's got concrete walls and

606
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 2: exposed air ducts and edison bulbs, aren't they're all sort

607
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 2: of new brutalists.

608
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:35,920
Speaker 1: Right kind of Yeah. And also it seems like little

609
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:41,480
Speaker 1: geometric pattern copper knickknacks on shelves that float that don't

610
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 1: really serve that much of a purpose. They're just decorative.

611
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:44,920
Speaker 1: I don't like that either.

612
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 2: We had that great mural though, really warmed that that

613
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 2: plays up it did.

614
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 1: I wonder what happened to that because we're not in

615
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 1: that building anymore, but surely they preserve the mural in.

616
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:56,799
Speaker 2: That question mark table. Where the heck is that thing?

617
00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 1: I don't know in space? I think.

618
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 2: Here though, in the twenty twenties, brutalism as an actual

619
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:10,799
Speaker 2: architectural style is making a bit of a comeback. Like

620
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 2: I said, I've seen quite a few houses in the

621
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 2: neighboring neighborhoods that are Some are just sort of like,

622
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:21,760
Speaker 2: you know, Hi, we're a blocky house, so that's more modern.

623
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 2: But there are a couple that are are true brutalist,

624
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 2: like concrete layers.

625
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:32,160
Speaker 1: It looks like there was a triumphant brutalist refurbishment here

626
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:36,880
Speaker 1: in Atlanta back in twenty eighteen. The Central Atlanta Library

627
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:41,319
Speaker 1: in downtown was designed by Marcel Brewer. Amazing building, but

628
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:46,439
Speaker 1: apparently that was the last work that Brewer completed before

629
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:49,360
Speaker 1: he died, and I guess some of the design and

630
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 1: some of the actual construction didn't quite jibe, and some

631
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 1: of his original intentions were covered up. Like there was

632
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 1: an elevator that had to be centrally placed. That just

633
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:00,399
Speaker 1: screwed things up quite a bit. And then they came

634
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:04,439
Speaker 1: along and they added more lights, they refurbished the place,

635
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:07,359
Speaker 1: they got rid of that central elevator, they opened it up.

636
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 1: There was a there's like a zigzagging staircase that's amazing.

637
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 1: That's now much more prominent, And in doing so, they

638
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:19,880
Speaker 1: actually made the building closer to Marcel Brewer's original intentions

639
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:22,360
Speaker 1: with his design than it was when it was built

640
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 1: when Marcel Brewer was still alive. So like, that's an

641
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:30,960
Speaker 1: example of the ideal of what's being done with brutalist buildings.

642
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 1: The opposite end is that they're being torn down because

643
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:36,360
Speaker 1: people vote them as like the ugliest building of all time?

644
00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:42,439
Speaker 2: Right, should we rattle off some of these famous ones? Yes, well,

645
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:47,839
Speaker 2: architecture architect wise, is it Lewis or Louis? I never know.

646
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 2: I think Lewis, but Lewis Khan was usually the first

647
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:56,799
Speaker 2: nam ial here. If people are kind of throwing the

648
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:59,799
Speaker 2: brutalist architect name around.

649
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, like you can make a pretty

650
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 1: good case that brutalism. I don't know if it's because

651
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 1: the buildings were meant to take center stage or whatever,

652
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:12,759
Speaker 1: but there aren't. It's just not household names compared to

653
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:15,799
Speaker 1: other movements, you know what I mean. Lewis Khan is

654
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:18,440
Speaker 1: definitely far and away the most famous, but I saw

655
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: that he's technically not even a brutalist. He just used

656
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:23,879
Speaker 1: brutalist elements. There are some like we talked about Paul

657
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 1: Rudolph of Vegenza, Sleigh Richter, Marcel Brewer. There's a lot

658
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:34,600
Speaker 1: of other really great I think Erno Goldfinger people you

659
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: just have never heard of. These are just random names.

660
00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:39,919
Speaker 1: It sounds like that a writer made up. No, they're

661
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: actually legit architects. They just aren't. Like this movement didn't

662
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:47,839
Speaker 1: have like star power like some of the other movements did.

663
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:51,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like we said, like Frank Lloyd Wright has

664
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:53,600
Speaker 2: done a thing or two, but he's not known for that.

665
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:58,439
Speaker 2: I am pay has dabbled in it in New York city.

666
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 2: If you see kIPS Bay Plaza by impay, very much brutalist,

667
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 2: but that's not how you know his name was made.

668
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:08,399
Speaker 1: No, no, but there are ones there like Nope, I'm

669
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:13,320
Speaker 1: brutalists through and through. The Smithson's obviously were brutalists because

670
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:16,359
Speaker 1: they founded the movement and one of the things they

671
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 1: completed was robin Hood Gardens, which was a housing estate

672
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy two and it was.

673
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 2: It's okay, brutal as brutal as brutalism gets it is.

674
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 1: And part of it was demolished, just part of it right,

675
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:34,440
Speaker 1: and it was actually acquired. Three stories of the building

676
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:37,759
Speaker 1: were acquired by the Victorian Albert Museum to preserve it

677
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:41,719
Speaker 1: because it's just such a fine example of brutalist architecture,

678
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 1: even though to me it's kind of ugly. But London,

679
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 1: because this was the epicenter of the brutalist movement, the

680
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: creation of it, it has a lot of good examples

681
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:56,719
Speaker 1: of really good brutalist buildings. What Prince Charles has to

682
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: say about them, notwithstanding.

683
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, King Charles, but he Prince when he said that

684
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 2: the Royal National Theater of London was a quote clever

685
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:07,839
Speaker 2: way of building a nuclear power station in the middle

686
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 2: of London without anyone objecting, right, I think it's cool looking.

687
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 2: I like it.

688
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:14,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say it's hilarious. But he's a

689
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 1: madman for saying that. I think he came up with

690
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:18,839
Speaker 1: a clever quip and was going to use it at

691
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 1: all costs, because anyone who looks at the Royal National

692
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: Theater it isn't like that's an amazing building, is wrong.

693
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:27,880
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Wrong.

694
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was also at the time, Princess Charles's best

695
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 2: stab at it telling a joke.

696
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 1: Well, he was apparently well known for being a mean

697
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,839
Speaker 1: critic in the media about architecture in particular. I didn't

698
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:43,240
Speaker 1: realize that, but that was like one of his greatest

699
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:45,799
Speaker 1: hits from what I can tell. But the thing about

700
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:50,399
Speaker 1: the Royal National Theater, it had really great horizontal and

701
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 1: vertical lines that were harmonious, which can be unusual for

702
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:58,799
Speaker 1: a brutalist building, but even more unusual, it fit the

703
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:03,320
Speaker 1: site that it's it's on. It's not imposed like every

704
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 1: other brutalist building of all time. If there's ever been

705
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:09,479
Speaker 1: a brutalist building that fit the site that Royal National Theater,

706
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:09,960
Speaker 1: is it.

707
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure? For my money. If you want to

708
00:40:14,080 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 2: have your socks knocked off by a blocky architectural gym,

709
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 2: then you should go to Montreal and look at Safti's

710
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:26,400
Speaker 2: habitat sixty seven. It was built for the nineteen sixty

711
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 2: seven World Spare there in Montreal, and it is super

712
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:34,239
Speaker 2: cool looking. It looks like something a child might build

713
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 2: out of building blocks.

714
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:39,919
Speaker 1: I've got one. The Peace Center in Hiroshima. I really

715
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: feel like every American should go there. It's amazing. The

716
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: Japanese in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki being bombed

717
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:50,440
Speaker 1: by nuclear bombs, their response was to build this peace

718
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 1: center to preserve what happened for generations to come, so

719
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 1: that it never happened again. They turned peacenik rather than

720
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:05,880
Speaker 1: retributive or vengeance. It's a pretty amazing response if you

721
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 1: think about it. And so it's a pretty amazing center.

722
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 1: And Kenzo Tonge, who was a student of like Corbusier,

723
00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:17,280
Speaker 1: started it in nineteen fifty and it's just a long

724
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:22,040
Speaker 1: rectangular structure that seems to be kind of floating on

725
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 1: the horizon. It's just a really amazing place, really amazing museum.

726
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:30,400
Speaker 1: It just has a it's just it gets you in

727
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 1: ways that like I'd never been gotten before.

728
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 2: Just five years after the bomb was dropped too, so

729
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 2: that like how heavy was that still in the air,

730
00:41:39,239 --> 00:41:39,480
Speaker 2: you know?

731
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:42,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean in Hiroshima, like it's I mean,

732
00:41:42,719 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: it's a part of the town. Oh, they preserved a

733
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:49,920
Speaker 1: bank that was just completely wasted, but the frame was

734
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:52,360
Speaker 1: still there. It's preserved. They build a fence around it

735
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 1: and the blocks are still where they landed after the

736
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: bomb was dropped, like it they didn't touch it after that,

737
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:02,279
Speaker 1: They just cording it. Often now it's part of this

738
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:05,440
Speaker 1: the museum. Parts of the city, entire parts of the

739
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 1: city have become part of this living outdoor museum. It's

740
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: just amazing.

741
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:13,319
Speaker 2: Japan. It's got to happen for me one day.

742
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: Yes it does. And seriously, go to Hiroshima. It's really something. Yeah,

743
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:20,120
Speaker 1: it's also a really cool town too. In addition to

744
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 1: the whole museum segment on it.

745
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:27,920
Speaker 2: Right, if you go to Tunisia and tunis the hotel

746
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:31,880
Speaker 2: do lack and if you look at the if you

747
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 2: look at that building and you say, man, if you

748
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:36,440
Speaker 2: chopped off the back of that thing, that would be

749
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:38,839
Speaker 2: a sand crawler that the jaw was rolled around in

750
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:42,600
Speaker 2: in Star Wars, then you would probably not be surprised

751
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 2: to know that and supposedly inspired George Lucas. I say

752
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 2: it had to have been, because when you look at

753
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:53,240
Speaker 2: that building, it looks just like that thing, that inverted pyramid.

754
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 2: Four hundred and sixteen rooms over ten floors. It's really something,

755
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:00,439
Speaker 2: and inverted pyramids are sort of a brutalless thing as well.

756
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:01,840
Speaker 2: But it's a great example.

757
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean it was open in seventy three

758
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:06,799
Speaker 1: and he was there shooting in the like years later,

759
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:10,399
Speaker 1: so it was definitely there in Tuness while he was there,

760
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:14,080
Speaker 1: So I buy that totally. One of the most famous

761
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: brutalist buildings in the United States, if not in the world,

762
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:20,920
Speaker 1: is the Geyisol Library you see San Diego. It was

763
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:25,360
Speaker 1: originally called the Central Library, but Ted Geisel, doctor Seuss's widow, Audrey,

764
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:28,719
Speaker 1: donated twenty million dollars in the university said let's just

765
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 1: rename it in honor of you.

766
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:34,319
Speaker 2: And Ted, well, she said ten million dollars and they

767
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 2: kept the name, and she was like fifteen, right, and

768
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 2: then she said, what do I gotta do to get

769
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:40,960
Speaker 2: our name on the front of that thing?

770
00:43:41,239 --> 00:43:41,479
Speaker 1: Right?

771
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:45,800
Speaker 2: This building is amazing. I mean, and this is again

772
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:49,239
Speaker 2: as an example of how like just sort of the

773
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:52,319
Speaker 2: variety that you can find in a brutalist building when

774
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:55,360
Speaker 2: you look at this compared to the robin Hood Gardens

775
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 2: building in London.

776
00:43:56,880 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, this one really prominently makes use of glass,

777
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 1: which can be rare for a brutalist building. And yet

778
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:05,960
Speaker 1: when you look at it, you're like, that is a

779
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:09,800
Speaker 1: brutalist building. It's just an amazing, beautiful brutalist building.

780
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:12,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. I can't wait go back to

781
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 2: Mexico City and see some of that stuff for sure.

782
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:19,360
Speaker 1: Also, I would strongly advise anyone not to make a

783
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,279
Speaker 1: drinking game out of how often we say brutalist in

784
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:24,720
Speaker 1: this episode, because we said it a lot.

785
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:27,799
Speaker 2: They already have drinking games of all that stuff on Reddit.

786
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:30,880
Speaker 1: I know, but don't do this one because you would die.

787
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 2: Soone said I counted how many times you said like

788
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 2: in the like episode, and I was like, well, yeah.

789
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:39,920
Speaker 1: It was kind of the name of the episode.

790
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:42,759
Speaker 2: How many times did we say lama in the Lama episode?

791
00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:43,720
Speaker 1: Right?

792
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 2: Well, Plus we had our additional likes because we talk

793
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:48,120
Speaker 2: like regular people.

794
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:52,240
Speaker 1: One other thing too, Chuck, if you want to see

795
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:58,840
Speaker 1: cool post apocalyptic brutalist architecture used really adeptly an illustration.

796
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 1: Go check out Eternal Dystopia's YouTube videos. Did I send

797
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: you that one called Research Center? It's like drone music,

798
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 1: but it's the video is like just this. It's like this,

799
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 1: like a dystopian brutalist building, kind of set in the

800
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:17,200
Speaker 1: haze and sometimes it's raining. I'll send it to you again.

801
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:19,960
Speaker 1: It's really amazing. But the drone music alone is pretty cool.

802
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:20,799
Speaker 1: So check that out.

803
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 2: You had the drone lately.

804
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 1: I am because it's not distracting. It helps you. Yeah,

805
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 1: it helps me focus, you know, I like it. Well,

806
00:45:28,600 --> 00:45:31,359
Speaker 1: check said he likes it, which means everybody that it's

807
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 1: time for listener maw.

808
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:37,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh boy, it's another correction. But Josh, this one

809
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 2: is on me.

810
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 1: Okay, now you're talking.

811
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:43,279
Speaker 2: I think the first one may have been on us.

812
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 2: But in the Nuclear Boy Scott episode, we said USS

813
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 2: Enterprise was a nuclear submarine. Yeah, it's in fact an

814
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 2: aircraft carrier. But the big one was when we had

815
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 2: our sort of brief debate about military discharge and I

816
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:58,719
Speaker 2: was just wrong, wrong, wrong, because I thought if you

817
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:01,480
Speaker 2: just served all your time, then they just called it

818
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 2: leaving the military.

819
00:46:03,719 --> 00:46:05,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just stopped showing up one day.

820
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:08,960
Speaker 2: You just stop showing up, or you call it retirement

821
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:11,439
Speaker 2: or whatever. I didn't think it was. I thought any

822
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:13,480
Speaker 2: time you left before your time was up was the

823
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:15,839
Speaker 2: only time it was called the discharge. Sure not. So

824
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:18,680
Speaker 2: we heard from a lot of our current service members

825
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 2: and veterans, but this one's from Scott Oliver. He said, guys,

826
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:27,640
Speaker 2: what Chuck said was not correct. Any way you leave

827
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:30,640
Speaker 2: the service is some form of discharge. And then he

828
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:32,680
Speaker 2: goes over this was the most detailed one. So we're

829
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,919
Speaker 2: going to read these discharges. You got the honorable discharge.

830
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:38,319
Speaker 2: It's the highest level, given to those who complete their

831
00:46:38,360 --> 00:46:41,640
Speaker 2: service and are discharged or are discharged early for no

832
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 2: faults of their own, like a medical issue. That's what

833
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:45,600
Speaker 2: you want to shoot for.

834
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 1: Sure.

835
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 2: General discharge lower level, but given to those who have

836
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 2: like a minor misconduct or a performance issue. I was

837
00:46:54,600 --> 00:46:57,200
Speaker 2: going to hazard a comical guess on what that might be,

838
00:46:57,560 --> 00:47:01,880
Speaker 2: but I'm not gonna. Okay, there's other than honorable or

839
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:05,399
Speaker 2: the ot H. That's a negative level. So now you've

840
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 2: crossed the rubicon and you're not good anymore. And it's

841
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:15,680
Speaker 2: given to people who have serious misconduct or violations of regulations.

842
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:18,360
Speaker 2: Then there are two more. You've got the bad conduct

843
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:22,279
Speaker 2: discharge or the BCD. This is actually punitive, and that

844
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 2: is if you were convicted by a court martial for

845
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:29,360
Speaker 2: something like desertion or assault or there and then you

846
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:34,160
Speaker 2: know we've got last, don't you. Yeah, dishonorable and that

847
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:37,480
Speaker 2: is a punishment for a serious offense, like committing a felony.

848
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:40,960
Speaker 2: Sorry for being pedantic, guys, you weren't at all, Scott.

849
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 2: But as a veteran, I find myself particularly attuned to

850
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 2: Roney's statements about military matters, and that's every veteran, Scott,

851
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:51,360
Speaker 2: So you're in good company, and we heard from a

852
00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:55,200
Speaker 2: lot of service members and all apologies for screwing that up.

853
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:58,719
Speaker 2: Sometimes when I say things off the dome without researching,

854
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 2: quite often in fact, i'm dead wrong.

855
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:04,200
Speaker 1: Man. Well, you really owned it, Chuck, like somebody with

856
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 1: an honorable discharge.

857
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.

858
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:11,160
Speaker 1: It was Scott Scott Oliver. Thanks a lot, Scott. You

859
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:14,080
Speaker 1: weren't pedantic at all. Chuck's right. That was very nicely

860
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 1: put and we appreciate being schooled. And also, Chuck, thank

861
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 1: you for selecting one where you were wronging, not me.

862
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess we were military school.

863
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:26,880
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch of this like

864
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:29,840
Speaker 1: Scott did and school us and do it nicely. We

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Speaker 1: love that kind of thing, you can send it in

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Speaker 1: an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff

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Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.