Torre Valesca // Brutalism

I don't know why I'm posting this now, but I was recently thinking about how, since architecture school, I have come to appreciate brutalism. The architecture building at the University of Manchester is an ugly, squat, bomb shelter of a building from the outside but is simple and well organised on the inside, with some very nice touches - such as the double height cafe and the courtyard garden.

I know brutalist buildings never fit in with their surroundings, imposing on their neighbours and destroying perfectly good views - but I think there is an endearing quality and honesty to a lot of these buildings.

One such building, which I saw on a trip to Milan this year is the Torre Valesca. It is a monumentally ugly building without any regard for location in terms of scale, materiality or form. It did, however, win me over.

I was impressed with the upturned flying buttresses - the way this top-heavy building is supported. I also noticed the seemingly random placement of windows on the upper facade - which has become fashionable now.

Later in the day I visited the castle in Milan, which is a little underwhelming, but what I did notice were the turrets. The Torre Valesca seems to directly reference the medieval architecture in its vicinity - made manifest in its simple form. This kind of reference to the past was a little odd to me, as most brutalism and for that matter pure modernism, appears to be entirely unaware of its surroundings.

Brutalism is never going to win over the public, and I'm not sure it wants to - but I for one am a fan.