Architecture Geeking

[mark_asphodel]

I'd noticed quite some time ago that the architecture in Southfield, just north of Detroit, was kind of oddball.  They have a lot of 1950s/1960s buildings that wouldn't look out of place in California, except they're mostly brick instead of stucco.  And the high-rise office buildings around there are pretty distinctive.

Welp.  Turns out Southfield really does have a high concentration of Midcentury Modern style buildings, including spectacular examples like this gem by Minoru Yamasaki, in part because Southfield barely existed before the 1950s, when Hudson's department store decided to build the world's largest shopping center and a subdivision of modernist ranch homes for their customers to live.  Anyway, urban decay, freeways, post-war money, and post-war housing demand all collided to make Southfield a pretty interesting place architecturally.  I got to take a very neat bus tour today and learn all about it.

I don't really LOVE Midcentury Modern, but it does have its appeal and it sure beats Brutalist shit and just about everything that followed.

Comments

[queenlua]

So I read this and was like "Huh, what's brutalist architecture?"... then I googled and was like "oh god that fucking eyesore that plagues the campus of my hometown university"

I don't know much architecture, but now at least I know that much :P

[mark_asphodel]

then I googled and was like "oh god that fucking eyesore that plagues the campus of my hometown university"

Heh.

Yeah, "that fucking eyesore that plagues the (region) of (city)" sums up most Brutalist stuff, IMO. There are some spectacular things like Habitat 67 in Montreal that aren't totally gross, and I do appreciate the argument that a style of building that apparently succeeded in, say, Israel really wasn't suited to wetter regions where the concrete aged and stained in horrible ways (so, decent idea --> bad execution) but overall, yeah. Eyesore.

[the_geek]

Brutalist architecture pretty much makes up the entirety of the city in my area. I always thought it was just called, "bland, gray, and ugly"

[mark_asphodel]

The "brute" in Brutalist actually comes from the French words for raw concrete, so "gray and ugly" is technically 100% correct.