The Future of Brutalism?

Nada Maktari

Word Count: 4,733

M. Arch Architecture Year 4 Bartlett School of Architecture

HT01 | Film + Architecture

Tutor: Christophe Gérard

2022-23

Abstract

In the latest Star Wars show Andor (2022), production has stepped back from fully virtual sets, usually a combination of LED Screen simulations and Stagecraft technology, and has taken preference to real set locations, particularly within recognisable Brutalist buildings in the UK. Andor’s creator, Tony Gilroy describes using real set locations as:

“a choice that looks set to add even more grit and earthiness to a series allaboutcapturingthattexture,set atatimewhentheStarWarsgalaxyisaparticularlydarkanddangerousplacetobe.”1

Showing set locations within the UK ignited a widely positive reaction, sparking interest for audiences, including myself, to spot and visit Brutalist buildings among other locations. Brutalism has been contextualised in many forms of futuristic settings, yet it remains polarised in our reality.

I look to question why we perceive Brutalism as a timeless form of architecture and why it is more suitable to futuristic settings. Th is essay investigates elements of Brutalism that were perhaps seen a s a ‘failed’ agenda since the mid-20th century, and explore how through Andor, if it has re-identified Brutalism as an architecture of the future, further questioning if this would be a futuristic architecture we can now accept as a distant reality.

https://www.empireonline.com/tv/news/star-wars-andor-doesnt-use-volume-says-tony-gilroy-exclusive/

1 Ben Travis, ‘Andor Doesn’t Use Star Wars’ Volume Video Wall: ‘We’re Old-School,’ Says Tony Gilroy – Exclusive Image’. Empire Magazine (01 August 2022)

Introduction

When watching Andor, I recognised familiar structures early on, one of which I found to be the Brunswick centre in Bloomsbury, London. I visited the Brunswick soon after, taking photographs of spaces I recalled seeing in the show. The images of which I chose to share online resulted in an instant fascination over the location and discussions over how a futuristic place can be found ’local’ to our reality. This led me to question why we are intrigued by the Brutalist buildings in Andor, what exactly makes it a more convincing setting rather than a purely conceptual setting within a science-fiction such as Star Wars, and why is it easier to accept Brutalism in Andor as a more realistic, futuristic space. Visiting these buildings generated an investigation of how seeing Brutalism through Andor could alter the way we now perceive them in our own reality For this essay, I intend to use recreated images and my own experience of visiting two Brutalist buildings in London which were used in Andor, as a method of analysis in comparison to intentions behind the buildings when they were designed and how they were initially received.

‘Brutalism’?

The word initially derived from the French word ‘Béton brut’ which translates to ‘raw concrete’, is believed to be inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles, France, completed in 1952. The building complex of reinforced concrete expressed the emphasis on materials used as found and a large expressive form. The term was first used by English architects Alison and Peter Smithson in 1953 for an unbuilt house project in Colville Place, Soho, comprising of a bare concrete, brick and wood proposal which was described as “the first exponent of the ‘new Brutalism’”. 2

The movement of Brutalism, however, was not officially established until Architectural Historian Reyner Banham’s’ review of Alison and Peter Smithson’s school in Norfolk in 1955. Banham’s writings on Brutalism have been of great significance in influencing how we perceived and still perceive Brutalism. In his published review ‘The New Brutalism’, Banham described:

“In order to be Brutalist, a building has to meet three criteria, namely the clear exhibition ofstructure, the valuationofmaterials‘asfound’ and memorabilityasimage.” 3

However, Brutalism fell out of favour in the 1980’s, it’s meaning has been easily interpreted as literally ‘brutal’, creating an image of a harsh style of concrete, dissociated, and left to decay. Despite its misunderstood meanings, what is interesting is the more recent rise of fetishization for Brutalism. It appears to fall in trend with the modern fascination for ruins and post-industrial decay, which once again displaces the representation of Brutalism

Christopher Linder mentions in ‘Brutalism, Ruins, and the Urban Imaginary of Gentrification’ how Brutalism is “rooted in anxiety over the rise of neoliberal globalization and the ways in which it is transforming urban space, reshaping the built environment, and exacerbating social-spatial divisions.” 4

Initially, the architectural style was mobilised as an attempt to address social issues, possessing a politicalethical dimension. When looking at how Brutalism is represented in cinema, this also feeds into a fascination within fictional urban contexts and culture, specifically within science-fiction. So where does it sit within futuristic films?

2 RIBA Architecture, Brutalism, ‘Brutalism in architecture’ https://www.architecture.com/explore-architecture/Brutalism

3 Reyner Banham, “The New Brutalism” (Published by Architectural Press, 1 November 1996) pp.127

4 Christopher Lidner, “Brutalism, Ruins, and the Urban Imaginary of Gentrification.” The Routledge Companion to Urban Imaginaries. 1st ed. Routledge, 2019. Pp. 278

Introduction

Brutalism as a Utopia or Dystopia?

Utopian cities depict a modern world where the use of new materials and technological development is provided. The architecture in utopian settings stem from Futurist principles at the beginning of the 20th century, particularly the skyscrapers and industrial elements within the works of Antonio Sant ’Elia’s La Città Nuova. 5

Within dystopias however, uniformity and placelessness dominate through its architectural settings. Dystopias tend to carry a theme of caution; it signals the failures in societies as a form of challenge but also offers utopian possibilities of change if there is a response. Cinema benefits the founded style of the1950s to show a totalitarian society as a “near future” where this dystopia is already possible, evoking its anxiety to the audience. Classical examples of these settings are found in Stanley Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork in Orange’ (1971) (Fig.1) and Terry Gilliam’s ‘Brazil’ (1985) (Fig.2).

There is an interesting argument where one cannot help to speculate with where Brutalism lies. What is seen as the misinterpreted distinctions of Brutalism parallels in carrying the settings for dystopian narratives, yet it too can offer this puzzle for rediscovery. 6

Although it has been popularised in cinema to depict dystopian settings, it does carry characteristics which would fit within utopian architecture. Before Brutalism was depreciated as an architecture style, it was seen as a positive technological development for urban living. This lack of identity dystopias emphasise through Brutalism can be turned on its head, for Brutalism, despite the uniform and totalitarian style it may show, delivers its personalisation, through its assertiveness.

5 Elif Demirici, “The Future of Architecture: Utopias, Dystopias, Heterotopias”, Re-thinking The Future, (Accessed 11th January 2023) https://www.rethinkingthefuture.com/narratives/a6319-the-future-of-architecture-utopias-dystopias-heterotopias/

6 John C. Lyden, “Film as Religion, Second Edition: Myths, Morals, and Rituals Ch.10 Science-Fiction Films” (NYU Press, 2019) pp.197-215

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1f8867x.14

Figure 1: Still of the Ludovico Medical Clinic, A Clockwork in Orange (1971) Lecture Theatre, Brunel University (1966) by Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners. Image via BogeArt

Figure 2: Still of Sam’s Apartment in Brazil (1985) Taller de Arquitectura, Noisy-le-Grand (1978-83) by Ricardo Bofill. Image via IMDB

BrutalisminAndor

Coruscant

This essay analyses two Brutalist buildings used within Andor, the Brunswick Centre and the Barbican. Both places have been used to depict a different perspective of the infamous city planet of Coruscant in the Star Wars universe.

The highly dense urban planet has been the centre to the rise of the Galactic Empire, a new fascist regime. Andor’s narrative is heavy on the spark of the rebellion, highlighting acts of espionage, coups, sacrifice, and the formation and destruction of alliances. The context is used to reveal the oppression under the Empire’s rule, stripping away an elegance and sleekness of a futuristic city originally shown in earlier Star Wars films ( EP I:The Phantom Menace (1999)– EP: III Revenge of the Sith (2005)), to evoke the anticipation and risks taking place under the masks of social hierarchy and urban living, simultaneously grounding a sciencefiction into a reality we can recognise more as part of our own.

Starting within a wider context, light and colour played a large role in Andor, depicting Coruscant as very different but real. Light reaches the city in the prequel films, radiating the frames of the cityscape with a highly saturated use of pink and yellow hues. There is a setting of an energetic and high-paced tone for the city, a personalisation of sculptural buildings, following characteristics of Futurist architecture where forms extrude to the sky, emphasizing the celebration of speed and movement 7 (Fig.3)

7Daily Herald Archive, “A Time to Experiment: Futurism” from “Houses of the Future: British Post-War Architecture from Modernism to Futurism”, The Daily Herald Archive via the Science and Media Museum (Published 3rd September 2021) https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/british-post-war-architecturemodernism-futurism

Figure 3: Still of the city planet of Coruscant from Star Wars’ Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)

BrutalisminAndor

Whereas in Andor, the rise of the Imperial Fascism is asserted through closer frames of the cityscape. Wide shots are limited but produce a sense of monumentalism, desaturated to a monochromatic tone where the city looks sterilized and less lively, depicting a rawness of material across the city. (Fig.4)

The main principles of Brutalism, such as where material is used “as found”, is combined with a verticality found in the principles of political/fascist architecture. Its scale and monumentalism seems to follow the functionality behind totalitarian regimes. In this case, Brutalism can be seen as a tool for the Empire, asserting itself in the core of its reign within public spaces. It contributes the image of an imposing regime as it represents a political reality where public spaces and constructions are manipulated by political interests.

Michael Minkenberg describes in ‘Power and Architecture’ that this approach of architecture, like art, contributing to an image, does not just represent a reality but rather creates a reality:

“In this way architecture can be seen not only as providing visual and spatial means of legitimation for a political regime or elite, but also a genuine act of constituting political reality.” 8

This proves to be successful for even in the absence of the classical silhouette of the Stormtroopers or the Galactic Empire’s symbol, the architectural style, and public spaces in Andor’s Coruscant does not discount the presence of oppression and surveillance of an Imperial fascist regime.

8 Michael MinkenBerg, “Introduction.: Power and Architecture: The Construction of Capitals, the Politics of Space, and the Space of Politics.” 1st ed., Berghahn Books, 2014, pp. 1– 30. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qd8m7.6. Accessed 14 Dec. 2022.

Figure 4: Still of the city planet of Coruscant from Star Wars’ Andor Episode 4: ‘Aldhani’ (2022)

ITheBrunswick

Futurism & The A-Frame

Built between 1968 and 1972, the Brunswick is a Grade II listed concrete monument within Bloomsbury, central London. The centre was designed by Patrick Hodgkinson, which comprises a shopping district and residential build. Such as many Brutalist buildings, the Brunswick was not excluded from being written about as another modernist disaster, in which its monumental and alienating concrete infrastructure played a role in negating an individuals’ sense of reality and self-identity. Critics such as Theo Crosby in the Architectural Review described the Brunswick as an urban “megastructure, a building that is a city, rather than being merely a component in a city”. 9

Much to Hodgkinson’s dislike, the label of ‘megastructure’ was later reinforced by Reyner Banham. Banham also goes as far as referring the Brunswick to Antonio Sant ’Elia’s futurist city La Città Nuova (1914), highlighting its A-Frame structure and twinned towers at the entrances as key inspired features. (Fig.5) It is significant to note that Hodgkinson rejected Banham’s references as his intent for the Brunswick was of more traditional characteristics, therefore rejecting the statements of the Brunswick’s association to Modernism. 10

Images via Wikimedia Commons

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1kwxfmg.15

9 Theo Crosby, ‘Brunswick Centre, Bloomsbury, London’, The Architectural Review 908 (1972): 212.

10 Clare Melhuish, “Post-war Architecture between Italy and the UK, Exchanges and transcultural influences Ch.11 From futurism to ‘town-room’: Hodgkinson, the Brunswick and the low-rise/high-density principle” (UCL Press 2021) Pp.160-163

Figure 5a: Antonio Sant ’Elia Air and train station with funicular cableways on three road levels from La Città Nuova, 1914.

Figure 5b: Antonio Sant ‘Elia Housing with external lifts and connection systems to different street levels from La Città Nuova, 1914.

ITheBrunswick

Whilst both Modernist and Futurist movements overlap in time and can be easily adaptable due to the appeal of technological advancements, Modernism celebrates shifting away earlier ideals whilst following a utilitarian and minimalist stillness. Futurism, however, is a continuation of utopian principles which were conceptually proposed by Antonia Sant ’Elia. Motion, contrasts, and abstraction are seen as innovative and a key aspect of characteristics for progressive architecture within Futurism. 11 Banham appears to have seen through the Brunswick earlier on as an architecture which follows these qualities in which both ideals of Modernism and Futurism can be found within the Brunswick. Regardless of Hodgkinson’s intent behind the Brunswick, The A-frame and the twin towers does shift from traditional characteristics of the 19th century into a highly functional and minimalist design whilst abstracting the Brunswick through sheer monumentality, where both, stillness and movement can be found within the Brunswick.

It seems like the Brunswick has resembled a failed agenda of its placement within our reality, misinterpreted in multiple ways early on in its timeline. There was a constant tension of Hodgkinson’s vision of the Brunswick as a ‘social concept and ‘tight knit human scale of the village, or town room’ against critics’ response of the Brunswick as a ‘concrete monstrosity’ or ‘a spaceship landed from outer space’. This may be the very characteristic which has continued to express the Brunswick as a multi-dimensional space, where both ends meet. Allegedly, its Futurist, sculptural, and monumental forms exhibit social concepts by emphasising the human scale through communal and liminal spaces. 12

11 Sidra Khokar, “Futurism or Modernism- Towards A Futurist Leap in the 21st Century”, Re-thinking The Future, (Accessed 14th January 2023) https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/architectural-community/a5614-futurism-or-modernism-towards-a-futurist-leap-in-the-21st-century/

12 Clare Melhuish “London’s Urban Landscape, Another Way of Telling. Ch.2 Towards a phenomenology of the concrete megastructure: Space and perception at the Brunswick Centre, London” (UCL Press) Pp.144 https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv8jp0nh.9

ITheBrunswick

The A-Frame in Andor

When visiting the Brunswick, its spatial characteristics reveal an alienated social setting, interconnected through its own urban fabric, and detached from the rest of Bloomsbury. It is the silent montage of reaching the residential flats that was a recognised parallel within episode 4 of Andor. The Brunswick is used as a setting for the character Syril Karn, a deputy inspector in corporate security, returning home to his mother after being dismissed by the Empire for his failure, resulting in all corporate security for another planet to be under Imperial takeover. (Fig.6)

Syril’s failure is not only symbolised using a ‘raw’ and oppressive concrete setting, but also by his return to what looks like a lower-class build, paralleled to the locality and reality of a resident returning to their family flat at the Brunswick. Regardless of its alienation, the social interaction of both human scale to megastructure as well as within a liminal space is paralleled in Andor, with minimal changes using visual effects. The social concept behind the Brunswick is carried through, revealing the Smithsons’ New Brutalism aesthetic of the ‘ordinary’ and ‘as found’ as a daily space grounding not only the architectural style but also the identity and memory of a social residential environment.

13

This leads me to question: why is it still so fitting in a futuristic setting?

13 Liat Savin Ben Shoshan, “Architecture, cinema, and images of childhood in 1950s Britain. Architectural Research “ (Cambridge University Press 2018) Quarterly, 22(2), pp.115-126. doi:10.1017/S135913551800043X

Figure 6: Stills from Andor Episode 4: ‘Aldhani’ (2022) featuring the Brunswick

ITheBrunswick

The Brunswick’s design, approached with permeability of an open-ended urban landscape, opposed to having one large concrete block has suggested a blurring of boundaries, yet a spatial hierarchy remains. The A-Frame structure, looms over in scale, framing an isolated passer. In Andor this A-Frame remains unchanged. Although it is not the first shot of the Brunswick within the montage, it is the most recognisable frame, where Syril is seen crossing the bridge within the atrium. (Fig.7)

The movement of Syril across the space with the daunting presence of the A-Frame reflects the relation between the human scale and the megastructure of the Brunswick. This further suggests that the form of the Brunswick is recognised not through its characteristics but that its certainspatialrelationsbetweenthese elementsaremaintainedwithinAndor.14

Additionally, the A-Frame is a recognisable structure which lends itself towards principles of Futurism. This spatial relation has remained unchanged within Andor, feeding into the monumentality of the building, whilst accommodating a stillness found within liminal spaces of modern architecture and balances the slight changes through VFX mass sampling, as an abstraction of Futurist architecture.

It is inevitable to distinguish the Brunswick’s Brutalist form as an alienation. However, the Brunswick adopted a reoccurrence of recognition, where one identifies what is seen as what has already been or could be seen in reality. 15 Just as Reyner Banham described the Brunswick’s A-Frame structures to be inspired by Sant Elia’s futuristic city of La Città Nuova (1914), the Brunswick’s A-Frame structure is now associated within a futuristic city in the Star Wars universe.

14 Jaques Aumont, “The Image, Chapter 1:The Role of the Eye: III.2.4 The Perception of Form”, (Published by London: BFI, 1997) pp.45-46

15 Jaques Aumont,“ The Image, Chapter 2: The Role of the Spectator I.2.1 Recognition”, (Published by London: BFI, 1997) pp.57

Figure 7a: Still from Andor Episode 4: ‘Aldhani’, showing the A-Frame of the Brunswick

Figure 7b: My recreated image of the Brunswick A-Frame

ITheBrunswick

The Brunswick in Blue: A Double Reality

When I first visited the Brunswick, the perception of it belonging to another world has already settled as I was first introduced to the place through watching Episode 4 of Andor My introduction to the A-frame through the image has shifted the vision of the Brunswick, for even when I started taking photographs of its sculptural forms from the outside, I couldn’t help but look for the certain setting where Syril crosses the bridge.

I successfully received access to enter the atriums that are now privatised for residents’ access only. Although I was unable to achieve the exact angle and framing, due to limited timing, the pleasure in recognising the similar placement showing the A-frame from the first floor allowed me to use it as an experiment in replicating the image from Andor. To finalise the image, I attempted to match its colour grading. I increased the contrast and desaturated the image, then applied cooler analogous hues of blue and grey over the image. (Fig.8 & 9)

I noticed the hues of a lighter yellow read as sunlight against the external columns of the Brunswick were juxtaposed, fading away once inside the A-Frame atrium in Andor. The frame is stripped of warm colours, with grey and blue grading dominant, further displacing the Brunswick. Blue, according to Patti Bellantoni, subtly manipulates the audience. When the colour is persistent in a scene, it “provides the emotional context for their plight and influences our sympathetic response to it”. Blue is often associated with detachment and is the ‘quintessential colour of powerlessness’. 16

In Andor, blue is blanketed over the Brunswick, not just as a sympathetic act to Syril’s melancholy but its persistent presence adds onto an oppressive uniformity Syril now faces, emphasised by walking in between the impenetrable thickness of the A-frame’s repeated structure within the frame. Additionally, the lightest hue of blue is seen beyond the A-frame, suggesting the open space of the rest of the city, adjusting the A-frame’s sense of space within Andor whilst blurring boundaries.

ITheBrunswick

Like Andor, when entering the Brunswick’s atrium, though not as exaggerated in colour, warmth does appear to be stripped away when underneath the A-Frames. In this process of visiting the Brunswick and replicating the image based on the image from Andor, I found myself perceiving the Brunswick as a sensory experience, potentially displacing its assertion within my own sense of reality.

The Brunswick appeal perhaps is successfully interpreted as an apparatus to see things as what they are through a sense of experience, and for this to spread, it is manifested through recognising the perception we choose to apply from our own imagination. 17 For this, I find that the reality of the Brunswick is interpreted and exaggerated in a futuristic setting. Even through experiencing the Brunswick in person, perceiving the form of it displaced as an ‘image’ from Andor and further displacing it in person when recreating the image, transforms the Brunswick from real to virtual, which in turn allows it to exist beyond its own reality . 18

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv8jp0nh.9

17 Clare Melhuish, “London’s Urban Landscape, Another Way of Telling. Ch.2 Towards a phenomenology of the concrete megastructure: Space and perception at the Brunswick Centre, London” (UCL Press)

pp.145

18 Jean Baudrillard, “Truth or Radicality The Future of Architecture” (Edinburgh University Press, 2013) pp.xx

Figure 8: The Brunswick as a Double Reality, placing the still from Andor on top of my own image of the A-Frame.

Figure 9: Editing Process and Final Image of recreating the A -Frame from Andor.

(Raw Camera Image)

IITheBarbican

Disposition of Space

The Barbican Centre is an iconic Brutalist development within the City of London, built between 1965 and 1976.The scheme was designed by Chamberlin Powell and Bon in 1955, with the intention to reverse the population decline in the area which was bombed during the Second World War. The Barbican’s development includes the art venues of the Barbican Centre, a public library, and the Museum of London, as well as the Barbican Estate which comprises of 3 tower blocks, 13 terrace blocks, 2 mews and a row of town houses. 19

In an essay by Elaine Harwood for ‘Building Utopia: The Barbican Centre’, it is said that Geoffry Powell “acknowledged le Corbusier to be the greatest inspiration for the Barbican, suggesting that the Unite d’Habitation in Marseille, which he had visited soon after its completion was the only language of architecture at the time”

Additionally, an entry by Frank woods, a younger partner to the architects, described how in the studios, the Barbican was perceived from the view of modernists, not even using the word ‘Brutalism’ to refer to the concrete, but using it as a material which was readily available. He further explains that the Barbican has taken generations to be constructed, absorbed, and regarded as an international model of its kind, and as time passes, the Barbican “grows to match and reflect the society in which it will stand” 20 This implies the Barbican as a permanently changing monument as the world changes, where its architecture will not fail to be read as part of the urban context and society of its time. This can be quite contradicting to the evolution of Brutalism as a style of architecture, where ‘isolation’ and ‘alienation’ are terms often used to describe its place within our contexts, further entertaining the thought of whether the Barbican was initially accepted by society as a modernist ideal and utopia rather than an example of Brutalism and if it still is.

19 Chris v. Uffelen, “Massive, Expressive, Sculptural: Brutalism now and then” (Braun Publishing 2018) pp.162

20 Nicholas Kenyon, Elain Harwood, “Building Utopia: The Barbican Centre, Essay 3: ‘A Haven of Cultural Perfection’” (Published by Batsford, 2022)

IITheBarbican

The development of the Barbican was extensive, yet it had illustrated a style of placemaking unseen before its time of completion. What could be an accurate and perhaps still relevant review was through the Architect’s Journal which described the Barbican when completed as having:

“all the aspects, gigantisms single of purpose - of that bygone age when architects had the confidence (or naivety) to believe that monumentality had a place in architecture and that part of the [architects’] job as designers was the imposition of a discipline and order on the users of the building.” 21

However, Piers Gough, wrote that: “The Barbican, with its multi-levels of pedestrian realm, was the closest built reality to the seemingly inevitable three-dimensional complexity of the future city.” 22 A complexity easily charted when navigating the Barbican as it provides a dramatic setting of monumentalism which although can be experienced as an imposing space, it can be argued the Barbican’s display of interlocking walkways and use of space is rather a disposition of space, both complex yet simple enough to re-enact as a city itself.

(Fig.10)

21 Nicholas Kenyon, Elain Harwood, “Building Utopia: The Barbican Centre, Essay 3: ‘A Haven of Cultural Perfection’” (Published by Batsford, 2022)

22 Piers Gough, “Piers Gough on the Barbican”, The Barbican (14 Aug 2018) https://www.barbican.org.uk/read-watch-listen/piers-gough-on-the-barbican

Figure 10: Cross Section showing the many spaces, walkways, and complexities in the structure of the Barbican centre. Image via RIBA Architecture.com

IITheBarbican

Re-Framing the Barbican

In episode 7 of Andor, ‘Announcement’, the Barbican is used as a meeting point between two rebels undercover in Coruscant. There are two scenes of the Barbican, a montage of walking shots, both outside and inside the centre. The first scene follows a female character in disguise known as ‘Kleya’ who appears to be from an upper-middle class background. (See Fig.12 ) The second scene continues to show Kleya walking, reaching her meeting point with an undercover rebel, ’Vel’, to discuss the location of money acquired and the next job at hand. (See Fig.14)

When filming an architectural structure, the film not only frames it, but re-frames. The act of framing the Barbican in Andor for this scene, much like the duplication of an image, amounts to an intervention of the Barbican within its social context. 23 (Fig. 11) This intervention of the social context within a frame, even within a Brutalist architectural style, is inevitable. Kim Dovey explains in ‘Framing Places’ that:

“Because architecture and urban design involve transformations in the ways we frame life, because design is the imagination and production of the future, the field cannot claim autonomy from the politics of social change”

23 Laura Rascaroli, “Film and Domestic Space. Architectures, Representations, Dispositif. Ch.9 No| Home| Movie: Essay Film, Architecture as Framing and the Non-house” (Edinburgh University Press. 2020) https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv136c512.15 pp. 157

24 Kim Dovey, “Framing Places: Mediating Power in Built Form” (Routledge 2008) pp.1-2

Figure 11: Re-Framing the Barbican, placing the stills from Andor on top of my own images of the Barbican Centre

Figure 12: Stills from Andor Episode 7 ‘Announcement’ featuring the Barbican (Walking sequence 1)

IITheBarbican

Unlike the Brunswick, the Barbican seemed to have less affect in displacing its assertion within reality but rather re-exhibits itself through framing. The nature of the mise en cadre of the building within Andor, relies on framing the Barbican with realistic elements taking priority. The choices of leaving both complex structural forms as well as detailing such as its lamps within the foreground of the frame feeds into a larger understanding of the embodiment of the space, grounding its reality when the background is changed through visual effects into a futuristic cityscape.

In addition to the approach of filming spaces ‘as found’, after visiting the Barbican to recreate the images, I recognised how my images register a slightly different perspective of the scene. It can be noted that the camera used for filming was wider than my own however, the representation of the Barbican has taken a less symmetrical approach perhaps to follow a more natural perception of an “off-screen” space. (Fig.13) When placing the image frame of the Barbican onto my own image, the perception of a space beyond the screen is applied. The Barbican is re-framed through the visuals seen in Andor, which allows one to read the Barbican re-framed as a continuity, its realistic elements and complexity carrying through from the Andor frame into my own.

Figure 13: Recreated Images of the Barbican featuring the walking ramp on the 2nd floor in the Barbican Centre.

Figure 13 (continued): Recreated Images of the Barbican featuring the walking ramp on the 2nd floor in the Barbican Centre.

IITheBarbican

Schemas and Sequences

Lara Rascoroli describes experiencing the Barbican in her essay ‘No | Home | Movie: Essay Film, Architecture as Framing and the Non-house’ as a space which is “almost like a town, and can even lend itself to becoming a metaphor of the world”. 25

Considering the Barbican as a metaphor of the world, particularly our world, is successful within Andor. As the Barbican was initially built for a larger middle-class setting within a financial district, it is evident the parallels are shown within Andor as the characters discuss money. Similar contexts were heard when I visited the Barbican Whilst setting up the frame (Still 4) by the sculpture park, a few people have walked past, some lingering in conversation about their work. This can be seen as a social context of how the space is used as a schema of an image beyond its frame, where one can easily read the rest of the social context of the scene in Andor through recalling experiences within a middle-class social space. 26

25 Laura Rascaroli, “Film and Domestic Space. Architectures, Representations, Dispositif. Ch.9 No| Home| Movie: Essay Film, Architecture as Framing and the Non-house” (Edinburgh University Press. 2020) https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv136c512.15 pp. 157

(Published by London: BFI, 1997) pp.57-63

26 Jaques Aumont, “ The Image, Chapter 2: The Role of the Spectator I.2.1 Recognition”,

Figure 14: Stills from Andor Episode 7 ‘Announcement’ featuring the Barbican (Walking sequence 2)

IITheBarbican

Additionally, I recreated the walking sequences as I was recreating the images from Andor during my visit to the Barbican. Initially, the choice was intended through taking pleasure in recognition of the space as seen from Andor and having a personal record to share. However, I had recognised through this that the sequences of the walking in Andor are almost fully paralleled to how one would walk within the Barbican. It appears there is more freedom with blocking within the Barbican scenes, where Brutalism performs through hosting the act of a walking sequence. (Fig.15)

The form of Brutalism as a configuration of a futuristic city through the Barbican has carried throughout its pedestrian routes. Piers Gough described Chamberlin Powell and Bon as “very skilful scenographers”, particularly when commenting on the sculpture park, the very location which was used in Andor. 27 This depiction of the Barbican as an architecture for cinema seemed to have traversed into the frame of film. The Barbican also carries a memorability not just through image, but discourse. Filmmaker and producer Don Boyd claimed that “discourse is what I feel the Barbican has always represented” 28 This emphasises the Barbican as a place for discussion, for people to conduct their own sequences perhaps with an underlying rebellious tone through history. The Barbican’s own cinema had an evolution of its own in becoming renowned for independent cinema, screen talks and discussion. The Barbican also serves as a labyrinth of architectural discourse, despite its monumentality it carries a flexibility in providing a structure that engages its audience. Perhaps it is the simplification of representing the Barbican as it is, especially in producing montages that do not reconfigure the sequences for Andor, allows it to succeed in recognising and specifying an emotional event which is still present when experiencing the space.

https://www.barbican.org.uk/read-watch-listen/piers-gough-on-the-barbican

https://web.s.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook?sid=e10b5f63-0ec6-4af7-86da-485193fe9c7f%40redis&ppid=Page- -27&vid=0&format=EK

27 Piers Gough, “Piers Gough on the Barbican”, The Barbican (14 Aug 2018)

28 Nicholas Kenyon, Sukhdev Sandhu, “Building Utopia: The Barbican Centre, Essay 11: ‘Cinema’” (Published by Batsford, 2022)

Figure 15a: Plan of the Barbican, and showing route paralleled in Andor by the Sculpture Park.

Figure 15b: Recreated Images of the Barbican featuring Frobisher Crescent and the Sculpture Park at the Barbican Centre.

Conclusion

“This is what gives architecture its power: it is a form of extreme anticipation of a lost object and, at the same time, of retrospective nostalgia for that object”

- Jean Boudllard, The Future of Architecture

Reflecting on my visits to the Brunswick and the Barbican, it is now impossible to not think of these locations as experiencing a part of Andor. Whilst the use of real elements and locations within Andor have been harmoniously displayed against the use of VFX to ground a realistic setting, not far beyond the reach of what is seen when visiting these spaces, Andor has allowed me to find a space within the spaces of Brutalist buildings, simultaneously displacing its architecture yet recognising it as a place of dual realities.

Brutalism appears to carry this form of anticipation and nostalgia of a lost object, within both realities, in cinema and our world. One can also consider Andor further reincarnates this through Brutalist principles: exhibited space, materials ‘as found’ and memorability. Representing the Barbican and the Brunswick as a double reality whilst adopting the principles of these spaces without exaggerated reconfiguration plays with Brutalism as an architecture which bounces between the real and the virtual. Through the image of Andor, we apply our imagination to understand the space, we rely on blurring boundaries of realities to perceive Brutalism as an architecture suited within Andor, yet we cannot escape the recognition of its placement within our time. This allows one to question if Brutalism is the most successful form of architecture in our reality that embodied Futurism.

Though it is evident Brutalism has been cast out as a structure that does not belong, it can be suggested from this essay Brutalism has managed to traverse time since it was founded. Early regards to Brutalism as a futuristic form of architecture had been lost through its fall in the 80’s yet when the structure is displaced within a futuristic setting and re-framed within an image, we are evoked to gage the possibility that we already live within a distant futuristic city; concurrently we question if Brutalism will always remain ahead of us, only to be an architecture beyond fiction.

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ListofIllustrations

1 Clockwork in Orange, Directed by Stanley Kubrick (1971) - Image via https://bogeart.wordpress.com/tag/a-clockwork-orange/

Accessed 31 December 2022

2 Brazil, Directed by Terry Gilliam (1985) - Image via IMDB

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/mediaviewer/rm3305806593/

Accessed 01 January 2023

3 Still from Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Directed by George Lucas, 20th Century Fox (2005). Disney+

Accessed 31 December 2022

4 Still from Andor Episode 4 ‘Aldhani’, Directed by Susanna White, Disney Platform Distribution (2022). Disney+

Accessed 31 December 2022

5 La Citta Nuova (1914) by Antonio Sant ‘Elia, via Wikimedia Commons

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Sant%27Elia#/media/File:Casa_Sant’Elia.jpg)

Accessed 31 December 2022

6-7 Stills from Andor Episode 4 ‘Aldhani’, Directed by Susanna White, Disney Platform Distribution (2022). Disney+

Accessed 31 December 2022

12,14 Stills from Andor Episode 4 ‘Announcement’, Directed by Benjamin Caron, Disney Platform Distribution (2022). Disney+

Accessed 31 December 2022

10 Photograph of a drawn perspective section of the Barbican Centre, Silk Street, City of London, England, 1970 Image via RIBA (https://www.ribapix.com/Barbican-Centre-Silk-Street-City-ofLondon-perspective-section_RIBA92181)

Accessed 14 January 2022

15 The Barbican Plan, Image via City of London Listed Building Management Guidelines

(https://democracy.cityoflondon.gov.uk/documents/s143623/THE%20BARBICAN%20LBMG%2 0Volume%20III%20final%20Draft%20Whole%20document.pdf)

Accessed 14 January 2022