//literary and arts//
Spring 2019
Spring 2019
From Concrete Barriers to a Concrete Utopia
Max Goldner
If one could worship architecture, leave it to MoMA to mount the shrine. Exhibition rooms would transform into prayer space; an exhibition might mount photos of concrete mounds parting sunlight and clouds, encase delicate sketches of lines and curves next to life-size building plans, allow hand-crafted models to cast a shadow onto an open floor, and let jutting furniture consume a room alongside additional interdisciplinary designs. This is no unrealized pursuit: such is the on-brand adulation any jaded viewer expects when we are transported into a vintage architectural world. Yet when this architectural world is from the era of Brutalism’s bulging concrete, should we expect equal reminiscence?
MoMA’s recent winter exhibition, Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980, addressed any qualms viewers may have had with Brutalism and Yugoslavia, the volatile country straddled between Western democracy and Soviet communism. Just as Brutalism divides opinion, the legacy and memory of Yugoslavia is fraught and controversial. With a nostalgic nod towards these two unlikely subjects, MoMA sought to illuminate how architecture fortified community, codified a shared history, and brought a radicalized vision to a now forgotten state. And yet, Brutalism and nostalgia rarely make an appearance together in the exhibit. The megalomaniacal concrete mounds that define this era of architecture were thought of as utopian at the time, and yet as decades passed and new styles emerged, the utopian mindset of Brutalism has since been re-contextualized as an enigmatic piece of the past. After all, how could utopian sentiments emerge from an architecture style that is sure to divide cocktail party conversations, especially when our collective memory of Brutalism, and more precisely the regimes who supported it, are not always so warm?
Tackling this ambitious piece of doubt, Chief Curator of Architecture and Design Martino Stierli and guest curator Vladimir Kulić together resurrected over 400 drawings, models, photographs, and film reels to produce an archival spectacle. Their curatorial assembly weaved municipal records with family collections, fabricated building models with full-sized red kiosks, bringing visitors a commendable breadth of the style of Brutalism and the time in which it flourished. Although images of concrete slabs were sparingly featured in the gallery, to my mother’s delight, this apparent curatorial decision still did not give way to any other concrete tone or mission. Indeed, as the exhibition continued, wall texts bursted with adulation: each attesting to Brutalism’s social and societal influence on Yugoslavia. Unfortunately a barrier seemed to exist between Stierli and Kulić’s ambitious argument and the experience for the visitor. While Brutalism may have become a meek curatorial pacification inhibited any hot takes the curators proposed.
This is not MoMA’s first time envisioning a utopia through architecture. Notably, the museum’s first architectural exhibition was on this theme. In 1959, Arthur Drexler’s exhibition Visionary Architecture re-examined projects of the 20th century deemed too revolutionary to build. Gleaned from archival instillation images, the exhibition was an experiential wonder. Sleek black walls allowed larger-life images of Frank Lloyd Wright’s mile high tower to quite literally illuminate exhibition rooms. There was a palpable sense of architecture shedding light on a muddled obscure future, and while Drexler certainly fetishized the future, a clear tone and concrete phenomenon were fluently communicated. Grandfathered into Drexler’s legacy and MoMA’s historical preoccupation with visionary architecture, Stierli sought to tackle nostalgia while maintaining a forward-looking agenda. While his exhibition draws more heavily on archives than Visionary Architecture, it is just as utopian in mindset. Stierli, however, seems to take few cues from his MoMA predecessor. By mixing white, beige, mustard, and dark grey walls with identical bright lighting, Toward a Concrete Utopia hinders the unified ambience that is prevalent in Visionary Architecture. Building photos, plans, and documents are strewn across these walls in a jumbled fashion, attempting to serve as a collage, but instead producing what resembles a poorly organized portfolio layout.
Nonetheless, the larger than life qualities of this futuristic architecture are displayed through some curatorial decisions. Photos of the most iconic buildings such as the S2 Office Tower are dramatized via their low-shot perspectives, looking up to such domineering structures, which are framed with bright cloudy skies. It is no doubt that such photos in isolation reveal their respective utopian sentiments, showcasing buildings that seem to shoot up out of nowhere, evoking the energy of the time and the people. And yet many of the curator’s arguments and goals are overlooked, even masked. For example, structures like the S2 Office Tower, which was lauded at the time as structural feats, seem delicate and ephemeral as this tower rests on two slender columns. While photos, plans, and models seek to render all perspectives of the S2 Office Tower, the lay visitor might not be able to appreciate such dynamism without a further push from the curatorial team. Instead of emulating Visionary Architecture’s floor-to-ceiling photos which fully envelop the visitor in a building’s grandeur, photos like that of the S2 Office Tower, which hang in the middle of the gallery, stick out without clear intention.
More frustrating might be not the lack of inherited vision from Drexler or Stierli’s predecessors, but rather the sheer natural phenomenon that Brutalism produced on its own. This seems to pose the greatest challenge of presenting this intimidating subject matter. Whether one finds these concrete masses to be megalomanias or utopias, Brutalism is nonetheless an emotive movement. As the architecture curatorial world knows, photos or any static renderings are not enough to capture any style’s essence or impact. Any curatorial decision about emotive styles should imitate that emotional experience, and should transport visitors into the historical past when Brutalism was fresh and newly inspiring. Unfortunately, such a daring opportunity was poorly executed, with this exhibit only providing a muddled perspective into the emotive world.
Despite this, I will concede that the phenomenology of Brutalism is in itself a contentious subject within architectural discourse, and to imitate a seemingly subjective phenomenon or experience is not every curator’s desire. We should therefore be charitable, even with those curators who address as tantalizing a subject as Brutalism. It is further evident—given wall texts and supplemental information on Towards a Concrete Utopia’s exhibition webpage—that the true desire from Stierli and Kulić lies within Brutalism’s capacity to both symbolize and initiate the “the radical diversity, hybridity, and idealism that characterized the Yugoslav state itself” (MoMA). Such celebrated statements from the curatorial team seem like they were plucked from the vigor and promise of the times they reference. And yet, if those forgotten times were bursting with creativity and utopian mindsets, we, the visitors, unfortunately do not have the tools to reconcile such promise with buildings that quite literally, were posited as concrete barriers.
I found one glimmer of light and hope in the ‘Everyday Life’ gallery room. With retro red televisions and telephones alongside IKEA-like lamps and Lupina armchairs arranged on the floor, I felt transported, if only for a moment. These pieces were more accessible than concrete photos or detailed floor plans: these utilitarian items referenced everyday life and encouraged interaction with the viewer. And yet, the form of nostalgia I felt in this moment was not one of radical diversity of hybridity. Rather, it was the nostalgia I feel whenever I rush past Brutalism’s traces in the built environment. Reflecting on my own experiences in cities like Tel Aviv, with street corners laid in white, curving, Brutalist balconies, I am able to feel embraced and acknowledged rather than enveloped and daunted by these structures. I can imagine a time when these concrete mounds were of a daring new style, bringing glamour and cosmopolitanism to a city like Tel Aviv. Yet even for the architecture nerd like myself, a stroll past these buildings themselves, let alone a curated gallery, can rarely tie a reminiscence of Brutalism to the grand technological and moral progress that Towards a Concrete Utopia proposed.
MoMA’s recent winter exhibition, Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980, addressed any qualms viewers may have had with Brutalism and Yugoslavia, the volatile country straddled between Western democracy and Soviet communism. Just as Brutalism divides opinion, the legacy and memory of Yugoslavia is fraught and controversial. With a nostalgic nod towards these two unlikely subjects, MoMA sought to illuminate how architecture fortified community, codified a shared history, and brought a radicalized vision to a now forgotten state. And yet, Brutalism and nostalgia rarely make an appearance together in the exhibit. The megalomaniacal concrete mounds that define this era of architecture were thought of as utopian at the time, and yet as decades passed and new styles emerged, the utopian mindset of Brutalism has since been re-contextualized as an enigmatic piece of the past. After all, how could utopian sentiments emerge from an architecture style that is sure to divide cocktail party conversations, especially when our collective memory of Brutalism, and more precisely the regimes who supported it, are not always so warm?
Tackling this ambitious piece of doubt, Chief Curator of Architecture and Design Martino Stierli and guest curator Vladimir Kulić together resurrected over 400 drawings, models, photographs, and film reels to produce an archival spectacle. Their curatorial assembly weaved municipal records with family collections, fabricated building models with full-sized red kiosks, bringing visitors a commendable breadth of the style of Brutalism and the time in which it flourished. Although images of concrete slabs were sparingly featured in the gallery, to my mother’s delight, this apparent curatorial decision still did not give way to any other concrete tone or mission. Indeed, as the exhibition continued, wall texts bursted with adulation: each attesting to Brutalism’s social and societal influence on Yugoslavia. Unfortunately a barrier seemed to exist between Stierli and Kulić’s ambitious argument and the experience for the visitor. While Brutalism may have become a meek curatorial pacification inhibited any hot takes the curators proposed.
This is not MoMA’s first time envisioning a utopia through architecture. Notably, the museum’s first architectural exhibition was on this theme. In 1959, Arthur Drexler’s exhibition Visionary Architecture re-examined projects of the 20th century deemed too revolutionary to build. Gleaned from archival instillation images, the exhibition was an experiential wonder. Sleek black walls allowed larger-life images of Frank Lloyd Wright’s mile high tower to quite literally illuminate exhibition rooms. There was a palpable sense of architecture shedding light on a muddled obscure future, and while Drexler certainly fetishized the future, a clear tone and concrete phenomenon were fluently communicated. Grandfathered into Drexler’s legacy and MoMA’s historical preoccupation with visionary architecture, Stierli sought to tackle nostalgia while maintaining a forward-looking agenda. While his exhibition draws more heavily on archives than Visionary Architecture, it is just as utopian in mindset. Stierli, however, seems to take few cues from his MoMA predecessor. By mixing white, beige, mustard, and dark grey walls with identical bright lighting, Toward a Concrete Utopia hinders the unified ambience that is prevalent in Visionary Architecture. Building photos, plans, and documents are strewn across these walls in a jumbled fashion, attempting to serve as a collage, but instead producing what resembles a poorly organized portfolio layout.
Nonetheless, the larger than life qualities of this futuristic architecture are displayed through some curatorial decisions. Photos of the most iconic buildings such as the S2 Office Tower are dramatized via their low-shot perspectives, looking up to such domineering structures, which are framed with bright cloudy skies. It is no doubt that such photos in isolation reveal their respective utopian sentiments, showcasing buildings that seem to shoot up out of nowhere, evoking the energy of the time and the people. And yet many of the curator’s arguments and goals are overlooked, even masked. For example, structures like the S2 Office Tower, which was lauded at the time as structural feats, seem delicate and ephemeral as this tower rests on two slender columns. While photos, plans, and models seek to render all perspectives of the S2 Office Tower, the lay visitor might not be able to appreciate such dynamism without a further push from the curatorial team. Instead of emulating Visionary Architecture’s floor-to-ceiling photos which fully envelop the visitor in a building’s grandeur, photos like that of the S2 Office Tower, which hang in the middle of the gallery, stick out without clear intention.
More frustrating might be not the lack of inherited vision from Drexler or Stierli’s predecessors, but rather the sheer natural phenomenon that Brutalism produced on its own. This seems to pose the greatest challenge of presenting this intimidating subject matter. Whether one finds these concrete masses to be megalomanias or utopias, Brutalism is nonetheless an emotive movement. As the architecture curatorial world knows, photos or any static renderings are not enough to capture any style’s essence or impact. Any curatorial decision about emotive styles should imitate that emotional experience, and should transport visitors into the historical past when Brutalism was fresh and newly inspiring. Unfortunately, such a daring opportunity was poorly executed, with this exhibit only providing a muddled perspective into the emotive world.
Despite this, I will concede that the phenomenology of Brutalism is in itself a contentious subject within architectural discourse, and to imitate a seemingly subjective phenomenon or experience is not every curator’s desire. We should therefore be charitable, even with those curators who address as tantalizing a subject as Brutalism. It is further evident—given wall texts and supplemental information on Towards a Concrete Utopia’s exhibition webpage—that the true desire from Stierli and Kulić lies within Brutalism’s capacity to both symbolize and initiate the “the radical diversity, hybridity, and idealism that characterized the Yugoslav state itself” (MoMA). Such celebrated statements from the curatorial team seem like they were plucked from the vigor and promise of the times they reference. And yet, if those forgotten times were bursting with creativity and utopian mindsets, we, the visitors, unfortunately do not have the tools to reconcile such promise with buildings that quite literally, were posited as concrete barriers.
I found one glimmer of light and hope in the ‘Everyday Life’ gallery room. With retro red televisions and telephones alongside IKEA-like lamps and Lupina armchairs arranged on the floor, I felt transported, if only for a moment. These pieces were more accessible than concrete photos or detailed floor plans: these utilitarian items referenced everyday life and encouraged interaction with the viewer. And yet, the form of nostalgia I felt in this moment was not one of radical diversity of hybridity. Rather, it was the nostalgia I feel whenever I rush past Brutalism’s traces in the built environment. Reflecting on my own experiences in cities like Tel Aviv, with street corners laid in white, curving, Brutalist balconies, I am able to feel embraced and acknowledged rather than enveloped and daunted by these structures. I can imagine a time when these concrete mounds were of a daring new style, bringing glamour and cosmopolitanism to a city like Tel Aviv. Yet even for the architecture nerd like myself, a stroll past these buildings themselves, let alone a curated gallery, can rarely tie a reminiscence of Brutalism to the grand technological and moral progress that Towards a Concrete Utopia proposed.
//MAX GOLDNER is a senior in Columbia College. He can be reached at mpg2151@columbia.edu.
Photo courtesy of https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/3931.
Photo courtesy of https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/3931.