"Despite all of these alluring architectural features, folks in Madison still moan, 'oh, the Humanities (Building)!' or call it a 'munitions plant from some bleak dystopian fiction.'"

"Brutalism often gets dismissed as the most hated or ugliest architectural style... To people coming of age during the height of the style's popularity, Brutalist buildings were ready symbol of the establishment that spawned protests and punk songs. Folks of that generation perhaps started the 'Brutalism is ugly' myth, taking Brutalist buildings as symbols of the cold bureaucracy, ignoring the human-scale articulation and thoughtful formal elements that are characteristic of the style. But the progressive, utopian, often socialist ideals that Brutalism also represents are back in vogue for today's young people. The resurgence of the left, in combination with the fact that Brutalist buildings' bare concrete exteriors look great on Instagram, could be fueling a renaissance of the style. Brutalism is back, baby!"

From "Towards an appreciation of Brutalism: Or, the Humanities Building is very good/Madison's most-maligned structure embodies a misunderstood, utopian school of architecture" by Mary Dahlman Begley (Tone).

Here's the "look great on Instagram" link, so judge for yourself if Brutalism looks great in Instagram's glossy little squares. I've experienced walking-around life with that Humanities Building for more than 30 years, and it's pretty horrible, but maybe I'm just a creature of the age group that hates it. I've walked by and through it many times, and I've done figure drawing sessions in the gloomy top floor where (I seem to remember) the windows are at ankle level. It will be very disruptive to tear it down, and maybe it is wrong to tear down a monument, even if you believe it's a monument to ugliness.

Thanks to our regular commenter David Begley for sending me that link. I don't know if I'd ever noticed Tone before. Here's another article there: "Madison dodged a monorail grift and barely even noticed" by Scott Gordon. We talked about that crazy thing a few days ago — here. Gordon writes:

In most of Transit X's renderings, and a hilariously bad video the company produced, the pods seem to be about 15 feet above ground and improbably tiny, looking more like weird oblong suitcases than passenger cars holding multiple people. The sense of scale here is severely off. City staff, perhaps fearing decapitation by massive black jellybeans, have wisely advised that we stick to the plan to bring bus rapid transit to Madison.

The video, at the link, is indeed hilarious.

"Preservationists say the building... is a classic example of Brutalist architecture that should be maintained for future generations."

It's the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, in Washington, D.C., a couple blocks from the White House.


(Photo by kimberlyfaye.)

Should we preserve historically significant ugliness? Because we need negative examples, to know what to avoid? For contrast? Because history matters? Even the 1970s?

But the church won in the end:

"Historic preservation was never meant to be more important than the very people or purposes that buildings were meant to serve... This 1970s Brutalist-designed building ... would have bankrupted this congregation and forced it out of downtown where it had been for 100 years. That makes no sense."

Sense! Should we make sense? How much more of history, art, and architecture would be lost to us now if we'd been making sense all these millennia?

Are you more convinced by the "make sense" argument — this place is bankrupting them — or by the passionate desire to demolish what is indisputably ugly?

Do you not worry that perhaps it is not ugly, not permanently ugly, and you are blinded by the aesthetics of our time? I remember, after graduating from art school in 1973, feeling quite sure the ornamentation on buildings like this was a hideous mistake and our cities needed to be stripped clean of it. Thank God I was powerless.