You can’t miss a Brutalist building in a skyline, its lines cutting across the cityscape and sky.
Striking modernist shapes and bold use of concrete are the hallmarks of brutalism, one of the main inspirations of the Statement aesthetic. Coined in the mid-1950s by British architects Alison and Peter Smithson, epitomized in Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse in Marseille, brutalism coupled the desire for social utopia of the 1960s with modern technology and engineering – decopunk of architecture, in a way.
Brutalist architecture has a graphic appeal that makes them feel at once modern and timeless. The genre owes its name to its signature material, concrete – béton brut in French.
But the brutality that these architects imagined was not violence, it is uncompromising honesty. Praised for its raw beauty and daring, brutalism is often seen in design as an antidote against artificiality and lightness. A closer look at many of these building reveals that far from being monolithic, they have a surprising complexity that nods to organic structures. And like them, poetry comes when time leaves its mark on each construction, making it unique, giving it soul.
Like them, Statement’s pieces become a true part of you as your life leaves traces of every emotion, every moment on its silver soul. A way to keep a record of significant moments, while traveling through time.