Introduction

In a recent exposition on Brutalism, “Troubles in Theory V: The Brutalist Moment(s),” Anthony Vidler concludes that the movement was both polymorphic and self-contradictory.1 This is apparent in attempts to trace the origin and development of the term (often done with reference to its close relative, the New Brutalism); in its initial debt to Mies van der Rohe and its use of brick, compared with its much closer and longer association with late Le Corbusier and its use of concrete, particularly béton brut, or concrete in the raw; and in the words that British architectural historian and critic Reyner Banham framed as a question: ethic or aesthetic?