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The White Guide to 'Brutalist' Architecture in Australia

Brutalism has got a bad name because it’s got a bad name.

It is the label retrospectively given to a style of architecture that flourished in the 1960s and 1970s. It is perhaps most characterised by heavy expanses of exposed concrete, virtually no decoration and exposed service pipes. At its worst it conjures up rows of soulless grey Soviet apartment blocks or British community hubs in tough neighbourhoods. No wonder it attracted the name ‘brutalism’.

However, here at White Hat we feel that brutalism found more fertile ground in Australia. The crowded conditions in Europe often pushed buildings in the vertical direction, whereas Australia often allowed the more leisurely horizontal. Place a good low brutalist building in amongst some untidy gum trees and scrub and there is no need to decorate it. The scrub softens the outline. Nor is the any need for major landscaping to ‘tidy up’ the scrub’. The simple geometric shape and the randomness of nature complement each other. Some of the best examples of this can be found the university campuses that were being developed around the 60s and 70s. Monash and La Trobe in Melbourne offer fine examples but maybe the best can be found at Curtin in Perth and ANU in Canberra. The library, for instance, rather than using customary external decoration uses the horizontal cement mass to host a frieze by Tom Bass.

As is often the case with architecture, the emerging technology, engineering and commercial models helped open up new possibilities. Before that time most concrete was mixed on site in batches but the new offsite concrete suppliers using the Australian designed trucks with large mixers on the back to deliver the product opened new opportunities. Concrete could now be made to a much stricter quality level and could be poured in a continuous flow from the fleet of trucks queued up like cows at a milking shed. The result was a cement that was worthy of being a ‘surface’ in its own right rather than a haphazard strata of different onsite batches.

Now, while exposed cement is often a feature of brutalist architecture it repays closer inspection. It is usually poured in wooden formwork and when that is removed the textured wood grain is left on the cement. It is not uncommon to see members of the public involuntarily running their hands over it. Contrast that with the precast concrete used in much present-day tilt slab construction. There is no texture and it says to the passerby “I know I am ugly and make no attempt to please you but you don’t matter – it’s what’s inside that matters.” Now that’s what we call brutal. Some Australian brutalist architecture also makes use of raw wooden surfaces. In a number of the better-designed Australian brutalist buildings the large masses of concrete act as a heat sink at a time when many architects were not thinking in terms of passive energy efficient designs.

Australian-based architects have long made innovative use of concrete. Think of the dome at the State Library of Victoria, Burley-Griffins’ Capitol Building and much of Harry Seidler’s work. Often we have grown up with brutalist architecture and not noticed it. It just ‘is’, and that reaction would be a cause of satisfaction for many architects. The Harold Holt Memorial Pool (speaking of inappropriate names) springs to mind. It does its job well, doesn’t get in the way of why people are there and has no reason to shout “look at me”. Unfortunately those expanses of concrete have proved a target for those who do feel the need to shout “look at me” and the spray can has permanently damaged the integrity of some of Australia’s finest brutalist buildings.

Of course, good architects don’t slavishly follow an “ism” but often adapt aspects to suit the project at hand. One of our favourite examples of a city building incorporating brutalist principles is the Previous Hoyts Cinema Centre at 133 Bourke Street Melbourne. When you think of stacking heavy horizontal slabs, a shape that comes to mind is the pyramid. Peter Muller’s 1969 cinema building subtly reverses the principle with the floors getting slightly larger as they go up creating the feeling that we are in a modern age we can have solidity but gently thumb our nose at gravity as well.

This was Melbourne’s first major multiplex showing a number of films at the one time. People spilling into the foyer at interval may have been watching a gritty piece of Ken Loach social commentary or a musical or science fiction. To head into the fantasy never-never land of the nearby Regent or State Theatres would be inappropriate and break the atmosphere. After all, the purpose of the place was to provide a venue where the films could say look at me – not the building. The foyer was large and the wooden ceiling and impressive hanging lights spoke of no particular time or place. The building has been decommissioned as a cinema but its outside structure can still be admired.

Next time you come across a familiar piece of Australian brutalist architecture from the 1960s and 1970s we suggest you take a little time to examine it more closely. You may find that it is a better piece of architecture than certain poorly designed older buildings covered with kitsch surface decoration that people seem to value more highly. Brutalism has got a bad name because someone gave it a bad name.