Brutalist architecture

An architectural movement from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. The idea began in France with the architect, Le Corbusier. His use of the term 'raw concrete', 'béton brut' in French, was used in Britain by Alison Smithson and her husband, Peter to coin the word, 'Brutalism'. This is a complex architectural philosophy that wanted a return to more formal architecture where the function of the building and the materials were honest and exposed. It most commonly features the use of concrete and repeated angles. The style has popularly come to be associated with large public building projects of the 1960s and 1970s where utility, ugliness and failure in terms of function led to its rejection, although its champions would declare this to be a misrepresentation of the theory.