Did you know?

Capitol Hill is the unofficial birthplace of Denver's preservation movement. Following the 1970s demolition of the Moffat Mansion (at 8th and Grant) Historic Denver, Inc. was created by concerned citizens in time to save another of our city's precious historic homes, that of the "unsinkable" Margaret Brown.

BRUTALISM

Closely related to the Formalist style was the European-derived Brutalism. The Second Phase International Style and Formalism represented two heirs to the International Style, the Brutalist style was another. For the most part, Brutalism was a response to the later work of the Swiss-born French architect Le Corbusier. In the 1920s and 1930s, Le Corbusier, a peer of the Bauhaus masters in Germany, became a champion of the International Style. Similarly, Le Corbusier discovered renewed design vigor in the post-war period in a new style – Brutalism. An early example of Le Corbusier’s Brutalist aesthetic is seen in his famous apartment building in France, Unité d’Habitation (from 1950).

Brutalism is characterized by dense compositions of square and rectangular volumes. The effect was to make a building more visually complex not through ornament, but through artful repetition of functional features.

Brutalist buildings were often constructed of cast concrete, which allowed for thick walls with deep recesses for the windows. Also back to basics was the fact that the cast concrete used was often executed in rough finished aggregate, with the imprint of the casing forms functioning to create additional visual appeal.

In this country, architects Louis Kahn and Paul Rudolph in particular became advocates for their own individual expressions of Brutalism. Another was former Bauhaus master Marcel Breuer, who like Le Corbusier, had come out of the International Style only to later embrace Brutalism.

The term was coined in the 1970s by Charles Jencks.

Defining Characteristics:

• Vertically oriented
• Robust, over-scaled proportions
• Expression of the fenestration
• Vertical windows
• Deeply recessed windows
• Use of smoke or gray tinted glass
• Complex formal arrangement of building’s volumes
• Thick vertical piers
• Eaveless walls or coping at top of walls
• Use of cast-in-place concrete or aggregate
• Use of self-sealing metals including Cor-Ten steel
• Flat roofs















Information and some images from Historic Denver guide books, including "A Guide to Denver's Architectural Styles and Terms." For more information please visit our online gift shop which offers over 20 of Historic Denver, Inc.'s award-winning historic neighborhood guide books!  Click here to browse & shop for our guidebooks.