GIF & ARCHITECTURE                                                              Visual Practice as Critique

Brutalist architecture is cultural heritage, although not necessarily perceived as one needed to be preserved. It may be associated with past political regimes or with low living standards and high criminal rate in some cases, but building constructed in this manner are representatives of, firstly, a historical period of architecture that is at the verge of disappearing. The limitation given by the requirements at the time of their building resulted in some highly aesthetical and original pieces that are alone remarkable examples of art in domain of architecture. 

Mass social housing from the middle of XX Century is depending today on willing of young people to stay for longer periods within them. In contrast to those young people who were the first residents of these blocks, people today usually see mass housing block as temporary homes only. This is the case in Budapest, in New Belgrade, in Moscow – cities that went under the most drastic transitions. The shorter the residents stay, the more of them are and the less are they willing to invest in the buildings and preserve them in good shape. For this reason, in various parts of Europe, housing blocks are in drastically different positions. 

Taking into account Great Britain only, the approach to this type of architectural heritage is absolutely diverse – while numerous parts of towns with social housing blocks are completely demolished, some blocks are being completely renovated, gentrified and popularised (especially in Sheffield and London). Heygate Estate constructed by Tim Tinker in 1974 (London) was demolished in 2009, while demolition soon awaits the Robin Hood Gardens, designed by Alison and Peter Smithson in 1972 (also London). 

The situation is similar in the rest of Europe. While the heritage of architect Jean Renaudie is protected cultural heritage and attraction for tourists in Lyon (Givors - La Cité des Etoiles, 1974-1981), Droixhе residential complex in Liege, Belgium, designed by group EGAU (Études en Groupe d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme - Charles Carlier, Hyacinthe Lhoest, Jules Mozin), 1951-1979, was demolished in 2009. Heritage of Franz di Giacomo in Naples, build in period 1973-1980, will be most probably demolished in near future, since it is the only way of dealing with criminal that is centralised in these blocks. Sociologists, historians of culture and architecture, claim that Europe could have learnt a lot from the social housing complex Pruitt Igoe in Saint Louis.

 

These blocks were completely demolished in 1972, due to extremely high rate of criminality which was caused by hundreds of low-standard residential units sharing a common entrance to the building. When USA ended the era of mass social housing and modernism in architecture, Europe started it, without avoiding building models that proved to be bad in the USA. One of causes could be the inexistence of extremely poor social strata which is in USA defined as class and which was ghettoised in those mass housing projects. For that reason, the was no concern with the quality of living within them, while in European social housing blocks one can find both professors at universities and residents from different social classes. Nevertheless, some of them are at the edge of complete demolition, such as Pruitt Igoe.