The Brutalist: an architect’s take on a film about one man’s journey to realise his visionary building
For anyone involved in architecture, it’s no surprise that a film focusing on a visionary architect and his profession demands the epic dimensions of cinematography, drama and a running time of 215 minutes, as in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist. This week the film was nominated in ten Oscar categories including best picture, best director and best actor.
Despite architects being present in film from the early stages of cinema, architecture’s role in society has rarely been at the epicentre of the narrative.
Notable exceptions are King Vidor’s The Fountainhead (1949), where the architect is a vessel for Ayn Rand’s hymn to individualism; Peter Greenaway’s The Belly of an Architect (1987), which looks at the political stance of architects; and last year’s Megalopolis, where the architect is the ultimate coordinator of everyday life. But I never felt these films grasped the reality of architecture’s complex obligations or the challenges beyond designing.
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The Brutalist tells the story of the fictional Hungarian architect László Tóth (Adrian Brody) who, after surviving the Holocaust and forced separation from his wife (Felicity Jones), emigrates to Philadelphia to work in the furniture shop of his prosperous cousin (Alessandro Nivola).
Unexpectedly, Tóth is tasked with refurbishing the study of a wealthy industrialist Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce), who despite his initial negative reaction, hires him to design an enormous library in memory of his mother.
In the process, Van Buren takes Tóth under his wing and helps him bring his wife to the US. The commission of the building is a joyous moment, but as the process of design and construction throws up challenges, the tension escalates.
Epic films usually depict the rise and fall of their protagonist, but The Brutalist explores the interconnected fates of the architect and his buildings. Tóth is aware of what is at stake. Once at the top of his game in Hungary, he is ostracised for his modernism which is considered anti-German by the Nazis. He is also condemned for being a Jew.
But Van Buren gives Tóth a second chance after a news story praises the building and he discovers the Hungarian’s previous work and his connection to the radical German Bauhaus movement.
From that point onward, we would expect that Tóth has gained his client’s trust. His joy at getting the authorities’ approval for the building is soon punctured by the obsessive Van Buren hiring consultants to check his work and keep tabs on the budget. Soon Tóth is beset by other problems as a railway accident delays the arrival of materials causing a hiatus.
Restarting the project is accompanied by constant concerns for health and safety and the pressures of any other potential delays. Tóth is also experiencing problems in his personal life, but Corbet and Mona Fastvold’s screenplay is driven by the challenges of realising his vision for this new groundbreaking building.
The Brutalist demonstrates the intrinsic role the client plays and how the architect is beholden to them – in this case necessitating the negotiation of a tricky relationship with the demanding Van Buren. As Italian architect Aldo Rossi writes in his book The Architecture of the City, “the architecture that is going to be realised is always an expression of the dominant class”.
And the dominant class wants things done their way. Tóth is even ready to sacrifice his fee to realise his vision. He needs the building to make a name for himself at a time when capitalism is producing unprecedented opportunities for architectural expression.
It is the period about which American architect Philip C. Johnson proclaims:, “the battle for modern architecture has been won”. Think of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Johnson Wax tower or Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe’s Lake Shore Drive Apartments, or Eero Saarinen’s General Motors Technical Center to reveal how the US became the main proponent of this ambitious expansive style.
A memorable scene in the cavernous marble quarries of Carrara in Italy is both magnificent and ominous. The sheer scale that renders humans the size of ants underscores the clash between nature and power, in the level of extraction required for materials, and the exploitation of people and planet to satisfy the egos of two competing masculinities.
In the past, “What does an architect do?” was a question I often was asked by clients who wanted me to justify my fee. This is a question I now ask my students to reveal their own perceptions and values.
Architecture is one of the three main fine arts of antiquity. However, beyond the artistry and the aesthetics, its role has been developing to meet the needs of its time. In a post-war world, architects were compelled to go beyond efficiency; they needed to create an identity and capture the public’s imagination, while creating buildings with market value.
Architects take many aspects into consideration. Tóth draws beautifully, has knowledge of materials and technology, reads the landscape and understands the environment. He also manages the budget and has to promote himself in a world that mocks his accent and others him as a foreigner – architecture has a long way to go when it comes to inclusivity.
US modernism is full of immigrant architects who either moved there very young like Estonian Louis Kahn and Finn Eero Saarinen, or by accepting teaching positions like Germans Walter Gropius and Mies Van der Rohe did after the closure of the Bauhaus.
So The Brutalist needs its three and half hours to tell the saga of an immigrant architect’s life and the long arduous years it takes to complete a cherished project. As an architect in a digital era, it made me nostalgic for paper, charcoal drawings and physical models. And wish that architects had a filmmaker’s power to complete the construction of a building like a speeded-up film montage.
Phevos Kallitsis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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