[M II A II R II K]

Atrocities Should Be Eliminated


April 9, 2012

By Anthony M. Daniels

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate...-be-eliminated

Buildings should be preserved for one of two reasons: they were the site of events of great historic importance, or they are of aesthetic merit. Buildings in the Brutalist style — which uses raw concrete or other materials to make art galleries look like fallout shelters — are certainly aesthetically outstanding: unfortunately, in an entirely negative sense. A single such building can ruin an entire townscape, and it is often difficult to believe that such ruination was not the intention of the architect. There is, I suppose, a third possible reason to preserve a building: to ensure that at least one example of its genre should survive. Thus it would be worth preserving one of Le Corbusier’s concrete monstrosities just to remind everyone of his astonishing and arrogant incompetence.

- Of course, architects and architectural academics will try to say that the fault lies not in the buildings but in the "uneducated" eye of those who decry them — though they themselves usually prefer to live in 18th century buildings if they can. Rossini once said of Wagner’s music that it is better than it sounds; the architectural panjandrums try to persuade us that Brutalism is better than it looks. But buildings cannot be better than they look, for architecture is a public art that imposes itself on its surroundings. It fell to the Brutalists to devise a style that cannot age but only deteriorate further. It is condescending of them to imply that, with their level of sophistication, we could learn to love concrete cladding that is starting to go black and is covered with graffiti. The reason they want to preserve such buildings is that they want to deny their past crimes against humanity, beauty and the townscape, which would completely destroy their current claims to "expertise." Preserve one and pull the rest down.

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