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Even in the utilitarian framing, it's sometimes okay for things to be neutral or unpleasant for most people to make a select group really, really happy. I enjoy brutalist buildings. I would be unhappy in a world where every building was brutalist, but that some buildings are brutalist is just really cool to me. Not independent of their property to be uncomfortable and unsettling, but because of it.
I hate to sort of boil this argument down to "let people enjoy things," but I don't think you actually believe Eisenmann wanted every single building on earth to be ugly and depressing. And in point of fact, I think you'd admit that, at least to eisenmann, his buildings-- even in being depressing-- were still beautiful. Take a look at this design study, for example. It's certainly no Mona Lisa. But even though it devolves into abstract shapes, that perhaps infuriate you with their intentional lack of meaning-- is the palette of colors used not lovely? Are the geometric forms involved wholly without harmony? I'm not asking you to like Eisemann's work. But try to understand the actual mechanisms of what brutalism, as a philosphy, is. Stripping out some of the aesthetic elements that we use to judge beauty of course makes a work unappealing to the people who primarily want to see those particular elements. But it also removes all obscuration from the remaining elements-- it puts the remaining beauty in the sharpest possible relief.
Consider music instead of architecture. People can love plenty of things about music... the harmonies, the melodies, the rhythms, the lyrics, the meaning, the context, the performance... etcetera etcetera etcetera. But liking big band swing shouldn't prevent you from at least recognizing the aesthetic qualities in ecclesiastical monophonic chant. And without making any moral judgements about pop music, I'm still very sure children should be exposed to the occasional string quartet.
See, I'm entirely on board with what you're saying, but that completely breaks down when it's not private architecture.
Many of these structures are built with public funds. I know the plebs don't count and rubbing their faces in the dirt is the point of a lot of things, but this strikes me as a particular kind of evil, to the extent that I can define it.
If Eisenmann is a neurotic who believes not everything is alright and that making people uncomfortable is the point of architecture, he's free to do as he wishes as long as he doesn't ask me to pay for his discomfort. I find this analogous to paying for someone else's S&M sessions.
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A string quartet is not comparable to a brutalist building. While children might find a string quartet boring, I think few if any would find it unpleasant. String quartets generally adhere to traditional norms of harmony and beauty; chamber music is often used to provide pleasant background ambience for social events - a testament to its qualities as inoffensive music without any notably dissonant or anxiety-inducing elements.
Brutalism, in contrast, is, if nothing else, designed to be visually jarring and arresting. It does not fade pleasantly into the harmonious backdrop of life. If you want to compare it to a music genre, compare it to industrial metal or dubstep or something like that. Beautiful to some; but actively (and intentionally) grating to others.
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