What's your favourite bit of brutalist architecture?

[All uphill]

Not sure this quite counts as brutalist but Coventry Cathedral is magnificent

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My next cycle tour needs to include Coventry Cathedral, Liverpool Catholic Cathedral and Clifton Cathedral.

 

[Profpointy]

My next cycle tour needs to include Coventry Cathedral, Liverpool Catholic Cathedral and Clifton Cathedral.

Clifton cathedral is near me and I've visited a few times for concerts. Again a rather fine building, particularly the sense
of space from the inside

 

[All uphill]

Clifton cathedral is near me and I've visited a few times for concerts. Again a rather fine building, particularly the sense
of space from the inside

The inside is, imo, much better than the exterior, maybe why it isn't better known.

 

[rjsterry]

The Ministry of Justice is a good'n.

 

[briantrumpet]

I so wish that they hadn't dismantled the Corbusier Philips Pavilion of 1958 that housed Varèse's Poème Electronique through loads of speakers around the building.

 

[briantrumpet]

The inside is, imo, much better than the exterior, maybe why it isn't better known.

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I've played a couple of choral concerts in there, and it's quite a challenging acoustic to play in!

 

[Adam4868]

Blackpool Magistrates
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Nooooo !

 

[mikeIow]

Interesting article on Goldfinger* & his brutalist blocks!
https://heritagecalling.com/2024/06/20/the-buildings-of-architect-erno-goldfinger

* yes, inspiration for Fleming’s Bond baddie🤣

 

[Profpointy]

I've played a couple of choral concerts in there, and it's quite a challenging acoustic to play in!

Not saying you're wrong, but as an audience member at quite a few gigs there, it sounds excellent, at least for the right music.

Montiverdi Vespers (good trumpet parts!)
Dvorak 8
Korngold violin concerto
Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms

(not all the same gig !)

 

[briantrumpet]

Not saying you're wrong, but as an audience member at quite a few gigs there, it sounds excellent, at least for the right music.

Montiverdi Vespers (good trumpet parts!)
Dvorak 8
Korngold violin concerto
Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms

(not all the same gig !)

Wish I could remember what I've played there!

 

[Grant Fondo]

I was sat underneath this having a brew last week.
Lancaster services, 1965 and grade II.

 

[briantrumpet]

I was sat underneath this having a brew last week.
Lancaster services, 1965 and grade II.
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That made me think of this, the Bristol shot tower.

 

[PK99]

I was sat underneath this having a brew last week.
Lancaster services, 1965 and grade II.
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closed to the public since 1989.
Another bit of Brutalist architecture that looks good but fails to function.

 

[Dogtrousers]

closed to the public since 1989.
Another bit of Brutalist architecture that looks good but fails to function.

I think looking good was a significant part of its function.

This may be wrong but I seem to remember reading/hearing ... In the 60s when M ways were being rolled out there were strict regulations on advertising of service stations. So the wacky tower was built as a kind of billboard.

I just looked on Wiki and the reason it was closed in 1989 is that there's only one way out - no alternative fire exit. Fire regs had changed since it was built (people were tougher in the 60s and thought nothing of jumping 20m out of windows)

 

[Dogtrousers]

Here's the Tower Hotel. I don't know if it's true brutalism or whether it's just a horrible building. I'm normally a brutalist fanboy (I like the South Bank) but this is really nasty. Also, just visible behind the trees is Tower Bridge, which is Victorian neo-Gothic, which I really don't much like either. So all in all a bad picture of some nasty buildings.