brutalist means pertaining to Brutalism, a style of modernist architecture characterized by the use of board-marked concrete. It carries an Arena rating of 1347, earned across 8 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, brutalist ranks #1,292 of 13,330 for Most Malleable Words, #4,846 of 13,330 for Most Incisive Words, #5,040 of 13,330 for Most Vivid Words, #5,451 of 13,330 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound.
Why “brutalist” is a great word
An architectural style defined by raw, board-marked concrete and an emphasis on structural honesty and monolithic mass, derived from the French béton brut (“raw concrete”), a key material of the style, with brutal ultimately from Latin brutus (“dull, stupid”); first recorded in reference to architecture in 1953. Unlike “ornate” (which drapes a building in decorative intricacy) or “picturesque” (which cultivates quaint, romantic charm), Brutalist is an aesthetic of uncompromising austerity. It is the cold, tectonic grain of a rain-streaked concrete wall, the stark geometry of a shadow cutting across a vast, windowless plane, and the profound silence of a monumental, unadorned block—a philosophy of building that presents a stark confrontation with the weight and substance of the material world.
Etymology
From brutal + -ist.
adj
- Pertaining to Brutalism, a style of modernist architecture characterized by the use of board-marked concrete“[...] after the original Victorian station was demolished and then entombed in concrete in the 1960s, Birmingham New Street became a byword for the worst excesses of the much-loathed Brutalist architecture so widely used to reconstruct inner-city post-war Britain.”
noun
- An architect who used this style
- Someone that follows brutalism.
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