SOS Brutalism : A Global Survey

Widely disliked in their heyday and only recently beginning to be appreciated, brutalist buildings around the world are at risk of being lost—in many cases to demolition, and in some to insensitive reconstructions that would forever alter buildings’ appearance beyond recognition. SOS Brutalism is a distress signal, an attempt to galvanize public awareness of the architectural heritage that is at risk of being forever lost. The book, result of a major collaborative research undertaking by Deutsches Architektur Museum DAM and Wüstenrot Foundation, presents a global survey of brutalist architecture of the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, covering around 120 key buildings from the period from around the world, many of them little-known and in imminent danger of destruction. Case studies of hotspots such as the Macedonian capital Skopje or New Haven, Connecticut, and essays on the history and theory of brutalism round out this groundbreaking and lavishly illustrated book.
 

Oliver Elser is a curator at Deutsches Architekturmuseum DAM in Frankfurt am Main. Philip Kurz is managing director of Wüstenrot Foundation in Ludwigsburg, Germany. Peter Cachola Schmal is director of Deutsches Architekturmuseum DAM in Frankfurt am Main.