1960
Bank of London and South America, Buenos Aires
SEPRA (Santiago Sánches Elía, Federico Peralta Ramos, Alfredo Agostini) + Clorindo Testa

Address: Reconquista 101
City: Buenos Aires
State: Capital Federal
Country: Argentina

This outstanding building in Buenos Aires may be chosen as to symbolic inaugurate perhaps a second moment of Brutalism that will characterize the trend from 1960’s on.

During the 1950’s decade it is possible to find of a relatively few scattered examples (already in a world-wide basis) displaying peculiar and varied experiments that may be considered as “Brutalist”; but not yet necessarily defining a formal “style”, or even an homogeneous idiom. From then on there is a notable numeric expansion of Brutalist examples; the tendency consistently appears in every place around the world; and its buildings will preferably display an explicit expressivity of their concrete structures. The taste for plasticity will, in the 1970’s, tend to exaggeration and repetition; but not yet.

Inserted in a downtown area surrounded by eclectic constructions it respects their overall dimensions and massive exterior aspect by means of a concrete exoskeleton treated as an artificial stone, so that the glassed façade does not contrast with the neighbors. The solution is nevertheless “energetic” and more so at the interiors, with sculptural staircases and details, quadruple heights and hanging slabs competing for attention and conforming an unique spatial experience.

CAD Design: Gustavo Rodrigues Secco

1960
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (Gordon Bunshaft)

Address: 121 Wall Street & High Street
City: New Haven
State: Connecticut
Country: USA

The sheer elegance of this building and its choice of noble finishing material may not be immediately associated with the roughness and lack of concern with detailing that is commonly associated with Brutalism. But still in 1960, the trend was not yet labeled and fixed as a repetitive collection of idiomatic expressions, although it would soon be reduced into a narrower path. As so, this superb example of Gordon Bunshcaft’s expertise can be here considered as a most charming possibility of Brutalism as a mid-20^th century trend for which tectonics meant design the building to express the constructive possibilities of its material and achieving its plastic expression from heaviness, rather than lightness. The structural façade idea is here taken to a peak, emphasized by the only 4 columns that support the first “box” (comprising the ceiling and the surrounding slabs at the first level), that protects the inner sanctum of a second steel and crystal “box” that shows the precious book collection while preserving its delicate integrity, while permitting a mostly free access from the plaza at the ground level.

BROWN, Elizabeth, New Haven A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1976; p.130

1960
Fiorello H. La Guardia High School, New York
Eduardo Catalano

Address: 108 Amsterdam Avenue
City: New York
State: New York
Country: USA

"A strongly articulated, poured-in-place concrete building typical of the best of 1960s construction. The cost of achieving such quality in New York soon became prohibitive, and architects switched to mostly brick and metal assemblies. This exception resulted from the halt of all school construction during the City's 1970s financial crisis and completion of the original plans many years later."

WHITE, Norval, AIA Guide to New York, New York, Three Rivers Press, 2000, p.358

1960
Fórum Itapira, Sao Paulo
Joaquim Guedes

Address: Praça Coronel Souza Ferreira
City: Itapira
State: Sao Paulo
Country: Brazil

Segundo analisa Mônica Junqueira de Camargo, neste projeto “o programa se articula em torno de um grande espaço central aberto, como uma praça, que se integra com o exterior e para onde convergem as áreas de trabalho, facilitando a distribuição do programa e o atendimento ao público. O desenho dos volumes é valorizado pelo contraste entre tijolo e concreto aparente usados nas superfícies e pelo número reduzido de aberturas, com formas e posições variadas, o que ajuda a enfatizar a liberdade na exploração dos materiais e na composição desse projeto.” (Camargo, 2000, p.58)

Esse arranjo em torno de um vazio-praça está presente em algumas obras de Alvar Aalto como o Centro Cívico de Säynätsalo (Finlândia, 1952) e é  comum aos projetos de fórum desse momento em São Paulo, realizados por outros autores afinados com o brutalismo paulista, como o Fórum de Promissão de João Baptista Vilanova Artigas e Carlos Cascaldi (1959), o Fórum de Araras, de Fábio Penteado (1960), o Fórum de Avaré, de Paulo Mendes da Rocha e João de Gennaro (1961) ou o Fórum de São José dos Campos, de Paulo Sérgio Souza e Silva (1961).

A diferença notável entre essas outras obras paulistas e o Fórum de Itapira, não é a introdução de paredes curvas ou de escadarias irregulares, detalhes que podem ser considerados episódicos, mas a relativa ausência de uma intencional “clareza” em prol de uma maior “variedade” na resolução arquitetônica, que se manifesta não apenas na disposição estrutural como na escolha dos materiais, na flexibilidade dos percursos, na deliberada “adaptação” à topografia, com aproveitamento do declive existente - não como uma ferramenta que permite uma transformação arquitetônica do lugar (como freqüentemente ocorre na obra de Artigas ou de Mendes da Rocha), mas como um elemento que faz contraponto formal com o próprio edifício, que às vezes penetra o terreno, às vezes ressalta deste, nem se conformando, nem subjugando o lugar.

A disposição estrutural do edifício demonstra essa vontade de variedade superando a clareza e unidade apriorísticas que são traços mais freqüentes em obras do brutalismo paulista sem deixar, entretanto, de a ele pertencer – pois a definição aqui adotada pretende ser suficientemente elástica de maneira a englobar mesmo suas manifestações parcialmente, alternativas.

According to Monica Junqueira de Camargo, in this project "the program is organized around a large open central space, such as a plaza, which integrates with the exterior and where work areas converge, facilitating the distribution of the program and the attendance to the public. The design of the volumes is enrich by the contrast between bick and apparent concrete used in the surfaces, and by the reduced number of openings with varied shapes and positions, which helps to emphasize the freedom in the exploration of materials and the composition of this project" (Camargo, 2000, p.58)

This arrangement around an empty square is present in some of Alvar Aalto's works, such as the Civic Center of Säynätsalo (Finland, 1952), and is common to the forum projects of that moment in Sao Paulo, perfomed by other authors in tune with the brutalism of Sao Paulo, such as the Promise Forum of João Baptista Vilanova Artigas and Carlos Cascaldi (1959), Fábio Penteado Araras Forum (1960), Paulo Mendes da Rocha Forum and João de Gennaro (1961) or Forum of São José dos Campos, by Paulo Sérgio Souza e Silva (1961).

The notable difference between these other São Paulo works and the Itapira Forum is not the introduction of curved walls or irregular staircases, details that may be considered episodic, but the relative absence of an intetional "clarity" in favor of a greater "variety" in architectural resolution, which manifests itself not only in the structural layout but also in the choice of materials, in the flexibility of paths, in the deliberate "adaptation" to the topography, taking advantage of the existing slope - not as a tool that allows an architectural transformation of the place as frequently occurs in the work of Artigas or Mendes da Rocha, but as an element that makes a formal counterpoint to the building itself, which sometimes penetrates the ground, sometimes comes out of it, neitherconforming not subjugating the place. 

The structural layout of the building demonstrates this desire for variety, overcoming the clarity and unity which are more frequents trais in Paulist Brutalism, although it does not belong to it - for the definition adopted here is intender to be sufficiently elastic in order to encopass its partially manifestations. 

CAMARGO, Mônica Junqueira de, Joaquim Guedes, São Paulo, Cosac & Naify, 2000

Archive FAU-USP.

ZEIN, Ruth, A Arquitetura da Escola Paulista Brutalista, São Paulo e Porto Alegre, 2005, (Tese de Doutoramento) Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul; p.122

1960
Guarulhos State School, Sao Paulo
João Batista Vilanova Artigas, Carlos Cascaldi

Address: Avenida Arminda de Lima, Centro
City: Guarulhos
State: Sao Paulo
Country: Brazil

The program includes classroom and small auditorium/library in a long block 115mX41m; although the two extremities remain supported on the ground, the intermediate portion allows, by the depression of the ground, to accomodate a partial lower level, which serves as acess to the internal courtyard and lodge locker rooms and canteen.

The classrooms on the northeast façade are protected from the sunlight by the wide eave that reveals the rhythm of the supports; the opposing southwest façade houses wide corridor partially protected by concrete leaked elements. 

The indoor covered patio is located at intermediate level ensuring a taller ceileing height; on the southeastern side was executed a mural authored by Mario Gruber on the wall of the auditorium/library. The party reinforces the school community, facing itself, but with open access, a characteristic that will recur in the works of the Brutalist Architecture of Sao Paulo, especially in those of public interest. 

The inventiveness of the structural solution takes advantage of the arrangement of the programmatic needs to grant unity and variety of its elements. The design of the supports varies according to their position relative to the transverse axis and as the rhythm is in three successive spans or in two spans separated by a void, and their asymmetry in the dimensions of the spans, arranged on each side of the support, or in the limit of the span. 

The game of primary colors on structures, floors and masonry is characteristic of the works of Artigas and Cascaldi at this stage, with some concrete panels left without apposition of color. 

O programa engloba sala de aulas e pequeno auditório/biblioteca abrigado em longo bloco 115 m x 41 m; embora as duas pontas permaneçam apoiadas no chão a porção intermediária permite, pela depressão do terreno, acomodar um nível inferior parcial, que serve de acesso ao pátio interno e abriga vestiários e cantina.

As salas de aula na fachada nordeste são protegidas da insolação pelo amplo beiral que revela o ritmo dos apoios; a fachada oposta sudoeste abriga amplo corredor parcialmente protegido por elementos vazados de concreto.

O pátio coberto interno situa-se em nível intermediário garantindo um maior pé-direito; no lado sudeste foi executado um mural de autoria de Mario Gruber sobre a parede do auditório/biblioteca. O partido reforça o ambiente comunitário da escola, voltada para si, mas de franco acesso, característica que será recorrente nas obras da Arquitetura Paulista Brutalisa, em especial naquelas de interesse público.

A inventividade da solução estrutural aproveita o arranjo das necessidades programáticas  para outorgar unidade e variedade dos seus elementos. O desenho dos apoios varia conforme sua posição relativa ao eixo transversal e conforme o ritmo seja em três vãos sucessivos ou em dois vãos separados por um vazio, e sua assimetria em relação ao eixo vertical de apoio se explica pela diferenciação nas dimensões dos vãos, seja dispostos a cada lado do apoio, seja se o apoio estiver no limite do vão.

O jogo de cores primárias sobre as estruturas, pisos e alvenarias é característico das obras de Artigas & Cascaldi nesta fase, sendo alguns panos de concreto deixados sem aposição de cor.

REVISTA ACRÓPOLE n.259, p.171, Mai 1960.  

ZEIN, Ruth, A Arquitetura da Escola Paulista Brutalista, São Paulo e Porto Alegre, 2005, (Tese de Doutoramento) Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul; p.116-7

CAD Design: Julio Beraldo Valente

1960
Habitat 67, Montreal
Moshe Safdie Architecte

Address: 2600 Avenue Pierre-Dupuy
City: Montreal
State: Quebec
Country: Canada

Built for the 1967 World Exhibition, these 158 apartments are just one part of a double megastructure of more than 1,200 apartments originally planned for a thin promontory behind the city’s port, their relatively isolated situation emphasizing their monumentality, which was probably a not-expected by-product of its proposition. Here again the dream of prefabricated stacked units is put forward without being completely achieved. There are fifteen types of apartments with "hanging gardens” with access by three circulation towers and covered walkways, organized as to create covered patios. Reinforced concrete panels compose each unit; post-tensioned cables ensure the stability of the twelve floors. Engineer August Komendant, a very important partner of Louis Kahn and other architects was probably the force behind the constructive elegance of the prefabricated concrete pieces.

VANLAETHEM, France, Discovering Modern Montréal and The Estérel Resort in Québec, Bruxelles, Belgique, CIVA, 2007, p.113-4

1960
Roberto Millan Residence, Sao Paulo
Carlos Barjas Millan

Address: Avenida dos Semaneiros, Alto de Pinheiros
City: Sao Paulo
State: Sao Paulo
Country: Brazil

"In this work the architect fully demonstrateshis adherence to the new trend and marks his contribution by helping to configure a typical paulist way of understanding and exercising the "brutalist style".

The rectangular house, that is set back indented in a corner lot, has a volume of 17 x 11,5m with dormitories and office on upper level, while the lower one houses the open car space, and make room for the dining/ living areas with a double ceiling height and a kitchen. This simple arrangement is marked by the open circulation near the northewest façade and the range of uses of support in the opposite southeast facade, with the median sector occupied by the main uses. Distritbution more or less coincident with the organization of the structure in six rectangular pillars, receded from the edges, in simple structure organized in the domino way, guaranteeing the independence between the walls and the structure even when its limits coincide and the materials give continuity."

 distribuição mais ou menos coincidente com a organização da estrutura em seis pilares retangulares recuados das bordas, em estrutura simples organizada à maneira dom-ino, garantindo a independência entre os paramentos e a estrutura mesmo quando seus limites coincidem e os materiais dão continuidade: concreto nervurado nas lajes, concreto leve e blocos de concreto nos fechamentos.

REVISTA ACRÓPOLE n.276, p.420, Nov.1961.

REVISTA ACRÓPOLE n.371, p.28, Mai.1965.

ZEIN, Ruth, A Arquitetura da Escola Paulista Brutalista, São Paulo e Porto Alegre, 2005, (Tese de Doutoramento) Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul; p.118

CAD Design: Julio Beraldo Valente

1960
Santa Monica Church, Mexico D.F.
Félix Candela

Address: 30 Calle Fresas
City: Mexico D.F.
State:
Country: Mexico

Constrained inside a limited urban parcel and by the necessity of designing a large church this building makes a double effort to use hypars to achieve a high internal void – so that its structural solution is neither symmetrical nor evident. The complex plant resembles a fan, with 4 hypars meeting at a central point that distributes the strength through a smaller circle that carries the strength with the help of posterior external buttresses.

(Reference: ALANÍS, 2010 p.80-81)

1960
Seguros Monterrey Buildings, Mexico D.F.
Enrique de la Mora, Alberto González Pozo

Address: Avenida Mazaryk 8 y Mariano Escobedo Polanco
City: Mexico D.F.
State:
Country: Mexico

The six-story floors of this office building hang from concrete trusses displayed above and resting n superior two main supports, or void columns, which also houses the stairs and other sanitary and technical facilities. A daring structural solution that was soon to be pursued by lots of architects, perhaps because it turns upside-down the traditional constructive logic of putting a building from soil to heaven.

This Mexican example is probably one of the first successful attempts to achieve this idea among several other buildings with a similar structural proposition, some of them constructed, like Marcel Breuer’s Armstrong Rubber at New Haven (1968).

NOELLE, Louise, Catalogo Guia de Arquitectura Contemporanea Ciudad de México, México, Compañia Editorial Electro-Comp, 1993, p.66;

LARA, Rosa, Enrique de la Mora vida y obra Cuadernos de arquitectura y conservación del patrimonio artístico, Mexico, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1981, p.31-37

1960
Sidney Smith Hall
John B. Parkin Associates

Address: 100 Saint George Street
City: Toronto
State: Ontario
Country: Canada

Who says a Brutalist building must be rebarbative? This early Toronto example - and several other similar ones around the world - proves against such hasty simplification. Probably because their authors did not learn from Le Corbusier only, but have also profited from the lessons of the “American” Mies Van der Rohe successfully transposed into concrete. Here a higher longitudinal block and a lower squared pavilion define a corner plaza at the main street and a garden to the rear entrances enhancing its public stature, with the same elegance that it solves its structure and detailing.

MCCLELLAND, Michael; STEWART, Graeme, Concrete Toronto A guidebook to concrete architecture from the fifties to the seventies, Ontario, Coach House Books and E.R.A. Architects, 2007, p.134-135

1960
Vestiários / Clube Paineiras do Morumbi / Dressing Rooms
Carlos Barjas Millan

Address: Avenida Doutor Alberto Penteado, Morumbi
City: Sao Paulo
State: Sao Paulo
Country: Brazil

The private Club Paineiras do Morumbi realized only the secondary building for physiotherapy, the locker rooms and the support to the swimming pool from the original project by Milan, and not the headquarters building.

The set originally proposed organized the uses in several levels, taking advantage of the terrain with accentuated slope, creating a platform semi-elevated that extends the common areas, guaranteeing wide open spaces for the users.

This topographic strategy allows the physical therapy building to gain prominence. It is a high volume on pilotis and enclosed by mobile brises.  

REVISTA ACRÓPOLE, n.332, p.26, Set. 1966. ARQUIVO BIBLIOTECA FAU-USP.

ZEIN, Ruth, A Arquitetura da Escola Paulista Brutalista, São Paulo e Porto Alegre, 2005, (Tese de Doutoramento) Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul; p.119

CAD Design: Julio Beraldo Valente