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