Statement or eyesore? Japan's divisive brutalist buildings – in pictures

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2025/jan/29/japan-brutalist-buildings-in-pictures

by PaulHoule • 1 year ago

79 37 1 year ago

I get that the “rawness” of the concrete is what literally makes these “brutalist”, but to my layman’s eye, dying the concrete almost always makes the building appear more attractive and less like a post-Soviet ruin.

https://www.dezeen.com/tag/coloured-concrete/

fatbird2• 1 year ago

Which is sadly contrary to brutalism's aims, which don't require buildings to be a mid-gray (and dark gray/brown when rained on), but it's a principled consequence of the approach that raw concrete buildings look so fucking depressing.

If concrete were off-white in its natural form, brutalism would be radically different.

[edit: sp]

makeitdouble2• 1 year ago

These are beautiful buildings and the article is worth t for the pictures alone.

Now modern architecture is generally appreciated in Japan. For instance the first one, the Okinawa art museum is rated 4.2/5 as a destination on domestic sites

https://www.jalan.net/kankou/spt_47201ae3302051347/kuchikomi...

Is the "divisive" bit in the title just clickbait ?

derbOac• 1 year ago

There's a quote from the photographer in the article: "Brutalist architecture in Japan might not ruffle feathers locally but it’s considered divisive elsewhere."

I agree the article title is confusing.

On the other hand, I love brutalism and have found myself having to defend it lately in a way I didn't think would happen.

DocTomoe• 1 year ago

Maybe the photographer should stop telling other people in other cultures what they are supposed to like or dislike.

card_zero2• 1 year ago

One difficult thing about it is that concrete weathers in a way which is, let's say, not conventionally attractive. The architects produce mockups where the walls are wide expanses of pure pale gray, but rarely do a second mockup where everything is covered in dark grimy streaks. This museum's patterns of perforations distract from the weathering rather well.

mc32• 1 year ago

Boston City Hall in Mass is one ugly building. Unfortunately it now has “landmark” status. Several Calif State Universities as well decided to wear brutalist arch as a badge: Dominguez Hills, San Jose, etc. I suppose it’s cheap, so there’s that.

randcraw• 1 year ago

I don't think so. No building material is as ugly as concrete. It starts ugly and only gets uglier with age as it inevitably discolors and crumbles. There's really no way to make it attractive.

Concrete's raison d'etre famously serves the ugly underside of society -- a factory, a bomb shelter, a pillbox, a prison, a slaughterhouse. And of course, building with concrete is famously more ecologically destructive per sq ft than any other building material. To build with it is to thrust a middle finger at passers by while belting out the Horst Wessel song (the Nazi anthem).

No, concrete is inescapably brutalist and devoid of charm at every level. 'Divisive' is far too generous.

Tainnor4• 1 year ago

There's really no way to make it attractive.

https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/case-studies/a3439-chic...

https://i0.wp.com/archeyes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/In...

https://imgur.com/a/cZ0yy43

rubenbe• 1 year ago

Incredible that there is no graffiti on any of them.

snvzz• 1 year ago

The swarms of tourists haven't got to them... yet.

PedroBatista• 1 year ago

I don’t think the tourists are the ones doing the graffiti…

simonw• 1 year ago

Apple TV+ used the International Conference Center in Kyoto as the location for the headquarters of a weird dystopian robotics company in their series "Sunny" and it was perfect.

(The show started out promising but didn't really work by the end and was canceled on a cliffhanger.)

andrew_mason1• 1 year ago

come for the clickbait, stay for the real-life star wars buildings

JKCalhoun• 1 year ago

I'm think Science Patrol from the O.G. Ultraman.

sega_sai• 1 year ago

I had a chance of working in a few brutalist style buildings (in different countries) and I hated it. All this concrete looks pretty horrible and is depressing inside. This actually brings a point about architecture. I feel that first and foremost the building should be designed for people inside the building, while how it looks from the outside should be lower priority. I do feel sometimes it is the other way around, where the architects design the building to win the awards and often aim at how unusual it's going to look etc, but what the actual occupants of the building will think is not really considered.

makeitdouble2• 1 year ago

For what it's worth, the concrete used in these type of official building tend to look decent even as it ages.

I've seen none of the buildings in the article as they're mostly out of Tokyo, but for instance the national art center in Roppongi is raw concrete and it still looks very nice

https://www.nact.jp

taffer• 1 year ago

The university I studied at was in a brutalist building. I loved it and every time I see a brutalist building, it reminds me of my time there.

sneak• 1 year ago

Why did you find concrete depressing?

fatbird2• 1 year ago

They're light gray when dry and dark gray/brown when wet. Their lack of colour feels dreary and oppressive. I like the form of quite a few brutalist buildings, but the grayness of them feels like a neverending cloudy afternoon.

thrance• 1 year ago

The main building in the college I studied at was called "Magellan" and designed to look like a sextant when viewed from above. I spent maybe 2 years in it before realizing that fact. It was very awkwardly shaped and no two classrooms where the same size.

It's located in a very rainy and cold part of the country, but the roof was completely flat and often leaked from the rainwater accumulating over it. The main hall had a giant 3-storey glass wall facing north, and as a result the building was extremely cold and a nightmare to heat up.

lupusreal• 1 year ago

I hate all of those buildings, but I'm not Japanese so my opinion doesn't matter. If the Japanese like those buildings they can keep them, or tear them down if they don't. Their country, their choice. If I were to butt my nose into their affairs, architecture would be very low on my list of concerns.

voidfunc• 1 year ago

One of the unspoken problems with brutalist buildings is that many are now starting to enter the phase of life where they need maintenance and it is expensive compared to other buildings.

Another problem is the buildings are ridiculously difficult to gut and remodel for more modern use.

kjellsbells• 1 year ago

It never rains in an architect's world.

The elegant lines, the broad sweeps, the little-people models and their renderings, all exist on a sunny spring day in April.

People live in a world where it rains and snows and sun-bakes. And, channeling my inner Jeff Goldblum, life finds a way.

Net result is that buildings that look beautiful on paper end up gray and splodged with rust marks, mold, moss, water damage and all the impacts of living on a wet planet.

Why anyone thought Brutalism would work in a country like the UK for example is beyond me. Perhaps it works in Japan (to some extent) because they have an intense pride in things being clean and comme il faut. I speculate that they also appreciate honesty-in-materials which is one of the tenets of Brutalism.

mjd• 1 year ago

Don't all buildings in the UK end up splodged with rust marks, mold, moss, and water damage? I'm not trying to be snarky here, I just wonder why it doesn't bother you the same way and why you're talking as if non-brutalist buildings are somehow immune to the impacts of living on a wet planet.

Aren't there many buildings in the UK where the moss or the weathering are considered picturesque and desirable?

card_zero2• 1 year ago

There's a practical answer and a psychological answer.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/Br...

That's Bridgewater House, which was in Downton Abbey, and it's got some bad staining if you look closely. But it's covered in details, so that tends to hide the dirt. It's made from blocks of stone, and most of the staining is different per block, so it only accentuates the blocks. There's nasty stains on the balustrades, but they're such fussy structures that you have to really look at them to notice it. The stone spheres at upper right are, I believe, all covered in pigeon shit, but again since they're small details and it's a fairly even coating of pigeon shit it really doesn't look so bad. The only parts where the stains stand out are on the small section of blank wall to the right of the main building, and around the entrance. They should probably clean those. But since these are small and accessible areas, and not giant expanses of blank smooth concrete, they probably can clean them (if English Heritage allows it).

So that's the practical side of it: details hide the muck. But there's also this "picturesque and desirable" angle. There are some deep-seated memes about romantic ruins. So yes, some old castle or monastery or cottage can be damaged and decaying in particular patterns that fit the tropes, and something inside us says "how storybook", and suddenly it's enchanting instead of gross. Which is kind of unfair. I often like to think about how castles are really just military installations that were originally full of special forces waiting to pour out the gates astride their four-legged APCs and subdue the local insurgents (especially in Wales), and if we could see them through the eyes of those locals they'd be threatening and oppressive and not picturesque at all. But you can't throw off these memes, it's culture, even if it makes no sense.

tim333• 1 year ago

Things like the Southbank Centre kind of work and are popular. Just rather ugly. At least being on the river you can face the other way and look at that. https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/magazine/concrete-dreams-c...

djmips• 1 year ago

You assume that everyone thinks that's ugly. These buildings with their wet planet blemishes look just fine to me.

Ferret7446• 1 year ago

That explains Fallingwater.

dfxm12• 1 year ago

The Tadao Ando designed museum listed is a work of art itself. If you can, it's worth seeking out buildings he has designed. Especially make it a point to go to check out the Chichu Art Museum in Naoshima, Japan. It's off the beaten path, but a day trip to Naoshima is very rewarding.

Tainnor4• 1 year ago

Combine a trip to Naoshima with an overnight stay, then take the ferry to Teshima the next day and explore the island by bike - that would be my suggestion.

veidr• 1 year ago

These buildings are all sick as hell except maybe that first one. Also, might be divisive amongst the white HOA enthusiasts of US & A, but I live in Tokyo and I am pretty sure that this style of architecture is widely appreciated here (and in Japan, generally). I know several people whose own homes that try to rock this raw concrete block style, although a regular person's home can't typically get too wild — maybe a stack of 3 concrete boxes, on tilt just a little bit if they're lucky.

Those houses are dope, though — wish I had one instead of my boring-but-nice apartment.

Every time I ride my bike to work, I have the good fortune to pass right by the Supreme Court building; check out this savage brute:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_Japan#/media/...

akomtu• 1 year ago

This is a toy version of the Giedi Prime's architecture from Dune: colorless oppressive-scale buildings that try to instill fear.

yapyap• 1 year ago

It looks pretty in pictures but I don’t know how enjoyable I’d find it if some of these were part of my daily life.

Tainnor4• 1 year ago

I was in Uji recently, but I missed that train station because I used the JR line instead of Keihan (there are several train companies operating in and around Kyoto and sometimes they use different stations), what a shame in retrospect.

I feel that this article is missing Naoshima, the Benesse House Museum or the Chichu Art Museum are great buildings. From the same architect (Ando Tadao) we also get the very minimalist Church of Light in Ibaraki (near Osaka) - I haven't seen that one in person yet, but there were some photos and models in Naoshima, too, that I found impressive.

Statement or eyesore? Japan's divisive brutalist buildings – in pictures

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