Funkis or Brutalism? From White Boxes to Raw Concrete

Funkis, the Functionalism of the 1920s and 30s, is light: smooth, white-rendered walls, slender columns, long ribbon windows and flat roofs, so that the building seems to float. Brutalism, part of post-war Modernism from about 1950 to 1975, is heavy: unrendered concrete in which the imprint of the formwork boards shows, massive columns and sculptural volumes on a large scale. Neither has ornament and both are built with a concrete frame, but funkis hides the concrete under render, whereas Brutalism shows it. The same architect stands at the beginning of both: Le Corbusier.

Facts

Le Corbusier Before and After the War

The clearest way to see the difference is to put two houses by the same architect side by side. Villa Savoye outside Paris, 1928–1931, is a white box floating on slender columns in a meadow. It realises Le Corbusier's five points: pilotis, roof garden, free plan, ribbon windows and free façade. The frame is of reinforced concrete, but it is rendered smooth and painted white, so that the house looks almost weightless.

Twenty years later he built the Unité d'habitation in Marseille, 1947–1952, a residential block for 1,600 people. The shortage of steel after the war meant that the building was made almost entirely of concrete, and Le Corbusier let the imprint of the formwork boards remain in the surface. He called the raw concrete béton brut. The building rests on enormous, sculptural columns instead of slender supports, and the façade is deeply shaded by loggias. The word Brutalism comes from béton brut, not from brutality, and was taken up by the English architects Alison and Peter Smithson in the 1950s.

Lightness Against Weight

Functionalism wanted to show that the wall no longer had to carry weight. That is why it was made thin and smooth, the windows were taken round the corners and the ground floor was set back or lifted on pilotis. Everything was to look light, bright and hygienic, like a ship or a sanatorium. The Bauhaus building in Dessau with its glazed workshop wing and Alvar Aalto's sanatorium in Paimio are typical.

Brutalism does the opposite. It shows mass and material. The concrete is left unrendered, sometimes bush-hammered by hand so that the aggregate shows, as at London's Barbican, built 1965–1982. Volumes project and recede, stairs and lift shafts become towers of their own, and the building appears to have been cast in a single piece. In the app's style profiles this is clearly visible: on the scale for weight, Functionalism gets the lowest value and post-war Modernism the highest, level with Roman antiquity and Romanesque.

Five Ways to See the Difference

The first is the surface. White or pale render almost always means funkis; grey, unrendered concrete with the grain of the boards or coarse aggregate means Brutalism. The second is the columns. Funkis stands on slender, round columns, Brutalism on massive columns or wall slabs that seem to carry the entire weight. The third is the windows. Funkis has long bands flush with the façade; Brutalism has deep windows, often shaded by projecting floor slabs or concrete fins.

The fourth is the scale. Funkis built villas, slab blocks, schools and hospitals of moderate size. Brutalism belongs to the great projects of the welfare state: housing estates for thousands of people, universities, cultural centres and car parks. The fifth is the form. Funkis is rectilinear and streamlined, with rounded corners like a car from the 1930s. Brutalism is sculptural, with heavy, angular volumes that interlock.

In Sweden: from the Exhibition to Kulturhuset

In Sweden funkis made its breakthrough with the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930 and became the style of the People's Home in the 1930s and 40s, with slab blocks, schools and villas in white or pale render; the period is covered under funkis. Swedish Functionalism was often softer than that on the Continent, with gabled roofs, brick and timber.

During the Record Years, 1950–1975, building became heavier. Peter Celsing's Kulturhuset at Sergels torg has a glass façade towards the square but a closed, heavy southern part, and he designed Filmhuset at Gärdet in raw concrete. Pure concrete Brutalism is nevertheless less common in Sweden than in England and France. Instead, brick became the Swedish answer: Sigurd Lewerentz's St Mark's Church and St Peter's in Klippan show the material as honestly as Le Corbusier's concrete, and are often counted as Brutalism in the broad sense. The concrete elements of the Million Programme belong to the same period but are industrial rather than sculptural; see the guide to the Million Programme.

Where to Look Next

Each style has its own guide: Functionalism and Brutalism. Le Corbusier's path from the white villa to raw concrete, and on to the chapel at Ronchamp, is described in the guide to Le Corbusier. Louis Kahn's Salk Institute in California shows how fine a concrete surface can be when the formwork and joints are carefully planned, far from the picture of Brutalism as grey and careless. The Swedish post-war period is gathered in the guide to the architecture of the Record Years.

Funkis or Brutalism

Exercise

A building has grey, unrendered concrete in which the grain of the boards can be seen, massive columns and deeply shaded loggias. Which style is it?