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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

Brutalism en · NOUN

Etymology

From brutal + -ism. Popularized in 1954 by the English architects Alison and Peter Smithson, from earlier Swedish nybrutalism (“New Brutalism”), after French béton brut (“raw concrete”), the material favored by Le Corbusier.

Meanings

  1. (uncountable) A style of modernist architecture characterized by angular geometry and overt signs of the construction process.
    • The trend towards Brutalism - an austere style that had its origins in the Bauhaus and is characterized by its emphasis on the building materials (especially bare concrete) and unconcealed service pipes - did little to improve the situation. 2005, Rodney Bolt, Bavaria, Cadogan Guides, page 26:
    • 2004, B. M. Boyle, Brutalism, R. Stephen Sennott (editor), Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Architecture, Volume 1: A-F, Taylor & Francis (Fitzroy Dearborn), page 181, Nonetheless, despite its radical appearance, Brutalism could claim, if not legitimacy, at least ancestry in pre-World War II modernism.
    • In similar spirit, Nigel Henderson, a member of the Independent Group's Brutalist core, exhibited black and white photographs of the East End at the 1953 ICA show Parallel of Life and Art which stressed the unsanitised reality of everyday life: Peter Smithson's defence of Brutalism through the categorical rhetoric of objectivity and truth, quoted above, echoes Anderson. 2000, Katherine Shonfield, Walls Have Feelings: architecture, film and the city, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), page 20:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
brutalism alternative lexicographic

Deriveds

Brutalist

Synonyms

New Brutalism

Translations (13)

es brutalismo (style of modernist architecture) · cmn 粗野主義 /粗野主义 (style of modernist architecture) · pl brutalizm (style of modernist architecture) · ja ブルータリズム (style of modernist architecture) · pt brutalismo (style of modernist architecture) · cy Briwtaliaeth (style of modernist architecture) · fi betonibrutalismi (style of modernist architecture) · mk брутализам (style of modernist architecture) · ca brutalisme (style of modernist architecture) · it brutalismo (style of modernist architecture) · cmn 粗獷主義 /粗犷主义 (style of modernist architecture) · de Brutalismus (style of modernist architecture) · fi brutalismi (style of modernist architecture)

wikipedia: Alison and Peter Smithson · wikipedia: Le Corbusier