Whenever a structure wins the accolade of “Britain’s most hated building”, or crowds bay beside a demolition as at a public architectural execution, the victims will be brutalist buildings.

Brutalism is one of Britain’s two contributions to modern architecture. The other is “high tech”, the engineering aesthetic of metal and glass that has, in effect, become the style of the City , the emblem of modernity. Brutalism, an aesthetic based on bulky cliffs of concrete, remains locked up in its filthy, rain-stained bunker, dismissed as modernism’s idiot relative, reviled, unpopular, a manifestation of everything that went wrong with architecture. One of its finest British proponents was Rodney Gordon, who has died aged 75.

Gordon remained unknown beyond architecture circles. His brief, flashy career largely happened in the office of Owen Luder in the 1960s, meaning his name was rarely associated with a building. In that time the office designed a handful of astonishing, sculptural buildings, nearly all of which have been, or are being, destroyed. The finest was the Tricorn Centre in Portsmouth, a terrific essay in sci-fi concrete that was left to rot by an unsympathetic council and chain stores that would rather have been somewhere else, somewhere with a bit less . . . character. Opened in 1966, its fiercely modelled form embraced a shopping centre, a nightclub and apartments. By the 1980s its apartments had never been fully occupied because of problems with damp and malfunctioning services, the nightclub had degenerated into a shabby casino and the top of the multistorey car park had become the south coast’s most popular spot for suicides after Beachy Head. It was demolished in 2004.

- bill 8-27-2008 3:45 pm

Well then, if you like it so much you should buy a Tricorn Centre skateboard.
- L.M. 8-27-2008 5:11 pm [add a comment]


thx, ill marry it. from that site:

The Tricorn Centre
Portsmouth, UK

1966 – 2004

The Tricorn Centre could be dark and foreboding but for us
it was a landscape full of warmth and possibility. Built in Portsmouth in 1966 this multi-purpose shopping centre was
a classic example of Brutalist architecture. Despite initial
praise for its ‘exciting visual composition*’, by1968 it was
voted Britain’s 4th ugliest building.

It was already largely evacuated in the late nineties when
we began to explore its vast expanses of ultra-smooth
tarmac, its painted curbs and loading bays. We were fascinated by its myriad bizarre shapes, it was somewhere for us to roam freely amongst sprawling concrete geometries.

Set against the backdrop of the practical and historical commonplace architecture of a coastal city it was a revelation. Sometimes in the south coast sunlight you could squint and conjure up a vista of orange Tunisian baked sand out of its curves and angles. Had George Lucas ever visited the place he might have saved a lot of money and shot the whole of Star Wars there. Perhaps it was too mad and wonderful even for that.

It struggled to survive from the outset due to a lack
of foresight by the town planners and a subsequent
reticence of big business to get involved. Only half fulfilling
it’s potential, over the years the building fell into disrepair
and neglect, by the late 90s only a handful of budget shops remained.

That such a complex structure was ever built is testament
to the freedom and vision of the era in which it was conceived. Today such a project would most likely be subject to so much commercial and political restraint that it would never make it to the drawing board let alone off it.

The Tricorn Centre was something that shouldn’t exist,
a place that couldn’t possibly thrive. It is largely thought to
have been a failure, but was that a failure to embrace the absurd, the different?

Although plans were drawn up to reanimate its cold, neglected hulk it was eventually torn down in 2004.

This board is our tribute to that “romantic piece of concrete sculpture**” and a reminder of a time when the possibilities
for the shapes and surfaces we live amongst were unshackled.
*Civic Trust
**Daniel Liebeskind

- bill 8-27-2008 5:23 pm [add a comment]


Scroll down for our Fucking Carbunkle by Daniel Libeskind. (I can't access that full FT article)

It would make a great skateboard graphic too.
- L.M. 8-27-2008 5:40 pm [add a comment]


Christian Science and the Brutalists.
- L.M. 8-27-2008 6:14 pm [add a comment]


ha ha. this time its personal:

“We believe this brutalist, unwelcoming, bunkerlike building is not a proper representation of our practice or our theology and, that without a compelling government interest, our members, not the Historic Preservation Review Board, are in the best position to determine that representation,” Mr. Kirkpatrick said Thursday in announcing the lawsuit at a news conference.

- bill 8-27-2008 6:18 pm [add a comment]


The batshit crazy & churchy Anthony Easton had posted that link, (I thought it was funny how he got to the same subject)
- L.M. 8-27-2008 6:22 pm [add a comment]





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