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Prague's Brutalist Buildings

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Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#91

Post by ocschwar »

saiya-jin wrote: post #19
noduerme wrote: post #3

I spent almost a year living in a brutalist building in Prague. It was a concrete slab with an huge central courtyard, like a prison yard. You could not access the courtyard, it was dark and dingy. But it was completely full of pigeons. Maybe a thousand pigeons lived there. The inner balcony at the back of the apartment was caked with about 3" of pigeon shit. One day I woke up and found they were power washing the en…

Sounds like central Prague. Its a strange place (lived there 5 years, moved to better places), what tourists see / are lured at is big pretty medieval centre with rich history. Almost nobody actually lives there, too expensive and impractical. The rest of the city is properly fugly and depressing, communism made its mark that won't go away for next few centuries. Most colleagues bought rather houses quite far from th…

> The rest of the city is properly fugly and depressing, communism made its mark that won't go away for next few centuries.

I have some good news. Naked concrete crumbles. Especially in a place like Prague, with acidic coal smoke, lots of rain, and a freeze thaw cycle.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#92

Post by Radiant »

aclimatt wrote: post #64

Every time a holier-than-thou architectural magazine waxes poetic about the beauty of "poor forgotten brutalism", they make their point by showing extremely well-cropped, always black and white, high contrast images to make the shadows pop. And then say wow isn't it a shame we're tearing these down? It's because that's not what crumbling Soviet-era buildings look like. Sure they're fun to photograph. I've seen these…

I'd agree with you if you were talking about generic "commieblock" buildings, but the ones presented in this article are pretty original and have a monumental feel to them. Pretty sad to see your sentiment upvoted this high on HN.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#93

Post by busyant »

It just hit me that I associate brutalist architecture with Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, in particular the marina scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtRGeyznv7k&t=27s). I'm not even sure if that's brutalist architecture in the background, but brutalist architecture has a dystopian vibe that goes hand in hand with the film.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#94

Post by spaetzleesser »

I visited Czechoslovakia and East a few times when the Wall was still up. The biggest impression was how gray and drab everything was in the cities. It seemed everything was gray and covered with a thin layer of dirt. Very depressing. The countrysides were just neglected and decrepit. Also depressing in a different way.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#95

Post by spaetzleesser »

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.

You can make stunning pictures of almost anything. I bet you could make stunning pictures in concentration camps full of starving prisoners if you processed them correctly.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#96

Post by spaetzleesser »

Deep6 wrote: post #16

I'm presently looking into building my residence using precast concrete. I love the raw concrete aesthetic,all the benefits from an insurance and maintenance perspective. You folks here are making me doubt the resale value...

I think it’s alright. This architecture mostly gets depressing if it gets dominant. One concrete house in an otherwise normal neighborhood may actually look quite interesting.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#97

Post by newby »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #94

I visited Czechoslovakia and East a few times when the Wall was still up. The biggest impression was how gray and drab everything was in the cities. It seemed everything was gray and covered with a thin layer of dirt. Very depressing. The countrysides were just neglected and decrepit. Also depressing in a different way.

I grew up in Czechoslovakia and I remember vividly how we visited Austria shortly after the fall of iron curtain. Everything seemed so clean and colorful and well maintained - it was shocking. I saw billboards for the first time in my life and they seemed incredibly beautiful to me. Until that visit I never realized how gray and falling apart was my normal environment (I was 13 at the time) - it seemed normal and I assumed it was like that everywhere.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#99

Post by RNCTX »

throwaway2331 wrote: post #86
JasonFruit wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help wishing you would flesh this out a bit, because it's true that it seems to be the case, but the reason isn't clear to me.

Aesthetics are disalienating. Separating humans from simple beasts of burden, toiling away in suffering, hoping only to be well-fed, and survive another day -- but no more. Aesthetics are a respite. Without, man becomes alienated from his humanity. Demoralized from losing a powerful moralizing force. My interpretation of Marx, Engels, Hegel, et al. In a certain vein, the U.S. lacks the same richness for it, compared…

There are two stories that come to mind, and I agree with your assessment.

1. In 2007 during the height of the financial market crash CNBC had a helicopter hovering over the northern VA house of a finance guy from one of the banks / insurers who was going belly up that had killed himself. The striking thing to me was how poor, aesthetically, the house was. Typical DC burbs McMansion trash. Plastic (vinyl) patio railing that was leaning here and there as it began to fail, landscaping that was obviously maintained by someone who had no concept of the original landscape design (bushes were either over or under trimmed). Windows that didn't match, but were rather selected from a catalog of pre-made designs haphazardly to fit a pre-drawn opening. Of course he killed himself when the money was taken, he had nothing of real value... if his living arrangements were any indication he spent all his money on worthless shit.

2. The story about the all glass Apple HQ injuring its employees because they couldn't subconsciously tell where the walls were as they walked around the building. They would incessantly walk into glass walls and break their noses, bruise their chins, etc. I wanna say I heard later that Apple silently had the building modified. If the ideology that built such an office building had to describe itself in a sentence, it would have to be "turning the collective eyes of the employees into the eye of Sauron, only without the dark lord's self awareness."

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#100

Post by m4rtink »

dralley wrote: post #72
m4rtink wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brno > Prague IMHO, as Brno actually has a city center where people live & which is rather nice. :)

Brno was a really nice place to visit, as an uncultured American :) It was the first city I've been to that felt truly oriented around walking and public transportation instead of being swarmed by cars. And I really enjoyed the overall aesthetic of the city.

Interesting! You might also enjoy Vienna, as that's where a lot of inspiration of the old (<1914) buildings comes from & its also very pedestrian and public transport oriented. :)
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