Stamp House, Charles Wright Architects, Cape Tribulation, Queensland, Australia, 2013.
Photographer: Patrick Bingham-Hall
Immediately after World War II, large swaths of Europe lay in ruins. Concrete, which is both sturdy and cheap, swiftly became the material of choice for the apartment blocks and municipal buildings meant to accommodate a ballooning, often displaced population. Eventually, the aesthetic of raw concrete structures became known as brutalist, after the French béton brut, or “exposed concrete.”
This style swiftly conquered the globe. And just as swiftly, it became reviled.