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Prague's Brutalist Buildings

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Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#31

Post by noduerme »

FatalLogic wrote: post #26
kvgr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stain was probably from spit and dirt. I lived in an apartment with a similar elevator. Nothing happened in 30 years that I know of. Just the dirt was never removed.

If people were spitting on the wall, the stain would be wider at the bottom, not at the top, because more people would pass the lower floors

It was blood. The sheer volume of it, the color, not to mention the distribution pattern, left pretty much no room for doubt. Also, one floor above where it started there was no stain at all - but nothing appeared to be repainted.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#32

Post by inglor_cz »

ur-whale wrote: post #14
inglor_cz wrote: post #7

A long time resident of Prague. I hate this shit. All of it. If there ever was an architecture designed to squeeze the soul out of you, spit on it, curb-stomp it AND, to add insult to injury, age like milk in absence of proper maintenance, this is it. The modern glass-and-steel architecture is "only" soulless in comparison.

Brutalist architecture is often beautiful, but it certainly wasn't designed for people, but rather as a monuments to the ego of the architect. I visited one of Le Corbusier's "creations" once (this one: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cit%C3%A9_radieuse_de_Marseill... ) Soul-crushing is indeed the only thing I could think of while there. [EDIT]: Here's a good article on function vs form: https://www.currentaffairs.org/…

These two links made a very interesting reading material. Thank you!

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#33

Post by soneca »

wodenokoto wrote: post #10
inglor_cz wrote: post #7

A long time resident of Prague. I hate this shit. All of it. If there ever was an architecture designed to squeeze the soul out of you, spit on it, curb-stomp it AND, to add insult to injury, age like milk in absence of proper maintenance, this is it. The modern glass-and-steel architecture is "only" soulless in comparison.

While I tend to agree that brutalist is sometimes an excuse for ugly, even you gotta admit that most of the pictures in the article are quite stunning.

Volcanoes and deserts also generate stunning pictures.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#34

Post by soneca »

Oddskar wrote: post #17

I fail to see the appeal. Much like most modern architecture this style will be applauded by architects, meanwhile they all choose to live in much older style architecture because it's more homely and non-oppressive. I guess architects are a bit like hedge-fund managers in that regard; they all keep their investments in index funds and not hedge funds. Complete hypocrisy imho.

Not that I like hedge-fund managers, but isn’t the norm for them to keep a very large portion of their wealth in their own hedge funds? As for the rest of it, it only makes sense to keep it in index funds if not diversify in other types of investments that are not hedge funds?

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#35

Post by inglor_cz »

mrweasel wrote: post #30
ur-whale wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brutalist architecture is often beautiful, but it certainly wasn't designed for people, but rather as a monuments to the ego of the architect. I visited one of Le Corbusier's "creations" once (this one: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cit%C3%A9_radieuse_de_Marseill... ) Soul-crushing is indeed the only thing I could think of while there. [EDIT]: Here's a good article on function vs form: https://www.currentaffairs.org/…

Many of the brutalist buildings, perhaps not those in the USSR, are designed with humans very much in mind. Many of the issues that have been with life in brutalist builds are down to them being frequently used for social housing. Placing a large number of relative poor people, drug users, people with mental health problem and a myriad of other issues in the same place will cause trouble regardless of the building ty…

Well, what is the causality there?

Communist countries were not as socially stratified as the West is now. In a Czechoslovak "panelák" (block of flats), doctors, professors, waiters and diggers lived side by side.

But the extreme growth of vandalism and alienation in this type of living was readily apparent by the 1980s. Lifts reeked of urine, graffiti was on every wall, glass panes were broken and trash receptacles kicked flat.

This wasn't a Communist-only thing either. Try finding an English translation of the heroin story "We Children from Station ZOO", written by a West Berlin junkie Christiane F. She devotes extensive passages at the beginning of the book to the soul crushing Gropiusstadt, which seemed almost constructed to make childhood more complicated and less joyful.

A hypothesis like "very bad architecture can damage humans psychologically" should not be dismissed out of hand, at least not without good evidence.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#36

Post by kvgr »

newby wrote: post #18
greyman wrote: post #9

I'd like to remark that the black&white photography somehow accentuate this "brutalist" feeling. It doesn't look as bad in reality. (I am also from Czechoslovakia).

Well... I am glad that nowadays they often paint "paneláky" with some vivid colors. When I think about cold and gray winter days surrounded by huge blocks of cold and gray concrete - it is like personification of depression for me. And now there is usually lawn and some trees but I remember when we moved into one of then new communist housing projects (how would you translate "sídliště"?) when I was a kid - there was…

I would be happy if they painted them in less vivid colors. Say you have 4 big panel buildings. Each has its owners association. Each one sets different color from different color pallet. You end up with heaven 1 blue, 1 army green/shitbrown, 1 bright green/yellow and 1 red buildings next to each other. The structure is massive and if you put different colors that dont match it is horrible pain for brain.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#37

Post by glogla »

inglor_cz wrote: post #7

A long time resident of Prague. I hate this shit. All of it. If there ever was an architecture designed to squeeze the soul out of you, spit on it, curb-stomp it AND, to add insult to injury, age like milk in absence of proper maintenance, this is it. The modern glass-and-steel architecture is "only" soulless in comparison.

> A long time resident of Prague.

Same here.

I love it.

I find it gorgeous in "wow look at the scale of things that humanity can do, if we set our mind to it". It makes me think of spaceships. The grey provides backdrop for greenery, of which there is a lot in Prague, especially now in fall when trees turn all colors each of them striking (the winter looks the worst here I think). It gives me the same vibe as Nordic minimalism, except it looks lived in, and used, not "fake perfect". It is very much alive.

Meanwhile, my friends laughed at me when I called American suburbs "featureless wasteland" after driving hundred miles through it.

I think this just shows that architecture is art, and opinions differ.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#39

Post by noduerme »

newby wrote: post #15
wodenokoto wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I tend to agree that brutalist is sometimes an excuse for ugly, even you gotta admit that most of the pictures in the article are quite stunning.

I think they are stunning because they are so ugly. Looking at pictures once is one thing and living or working there is another thing. Add the unwanted associations with the totalitarian regime... I have to admit that I am in favor of destroying them and replacing them with something nicer wherever possible. I respect that beauty is in the eye of the beholder; just my $0.02.

The totalitarian association is what makes them so fucked up. The architects themselves had no true intention of making "art" - they were embodying evil, actually broadcasting and embedding evil into everyday life, for no reason other than pure hatred of the basic human needs in everyday life. They hated their own kind. And anyone who celebrated them, even as a cerebral exercise was evil as well. There are certain buildings in Buenos Aires that you know were where people were tortured in cages in the basement; under the dictatorship, this functioned as a type of psychological abuse of the population who have to walk by that place.

The Kremlin is a type of thing like that, even though it existed long before brutalist architecture; its purpose is the same. A boot stamping forever on a human face.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#40

Post by samizdis »

zedr wrote: post #2

Archive.org copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20211021141127/https://www.calver... My favourite brutalist building is in Belgrade: the Western City Gate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_City_Gate

I love Belgrade and have stayed there maybe a dozen times in the past few years. Usually I stayed in Old Belgrade, in the formerly (or perhaps still?) state-run hotel, which is partly staffed by students from a hospitality/catering college attached to it as they do their training.

A couple of years ago I stayed at an AirBnB apartment in New Belgrade. Beautiful apartment, but the building was brutal and huge, built in a long sort of zig-zag that went on and on. The name of the street nearest to the entrance I was using translated as "Anti-fascist struggle street".

Here's a picture of it:

https://belgrade.tips/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/kineski-zid...

And here's the full article (not terribly good) about the building, from which I took the picture link.

https://belgrade.tips/index.php/2021/04/27/belgrade-is-adorn...

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