Gongol.com Archives: October 2024

Brian Gongol


October 3, 2024

Iowa Well, that's Brutal

A columnist for the University of Iowa's student newspaper laments that his campus remains peppered with buildings in the Brutalist architectural style. Cole Walker pleads, "Brutalist-style buildings should be torn down or renovated to enhance campus facilities and engage students in nontraditional ways, ensuring that curiosity and creativity flourish through a focus on design and culture." ■ He's entirely not wrong; some of the concrete monoliths of Iowa City are drab and uninspiring -- though others have modestly more curb appeal than they might be given credit for having. But it's a stretch to imagine that a public university will simply tear down big, heavy buildings just for the purpose of replacing them with structures that "engage students in nontraditional ways". That would require a whole lot of money for a terribly ambiguous purpose. ■ But what the student's plea does underscore is a lesson that ought to ring in every architect's ears: Buildings should be designed for the people inside them. ■ Most buildings are scarcely "designed" at all; nobody's really putting much thought into a strip mall. But those buildings that are favored enough to get true architectural treatment should generally obey Louis Sullivan's maxim that form follows function. The modern spin on that maxim ought to be that "Form first follows the function of serving the people inside". ■ How many buildings are constructed with little or no regard for even the basic features of permitting sunlight when it is wanted or filtering it naturally when it is not? Or of encouraging generous natural airflow to enhance mechanical HVAC? Or of creating interior spaces that thoughtfully center on the human experience? ■ Much can be done to add ornamentation or change a facade later on in the design phase -- or even be conducted during a long-overdue renovation. But surface features that matter only to people on the outside should come far behind the priority to make the building the best it can be for the needs of the people performing the functions inside of it -- not for the sake of the functions, but for the sake of the occupants. If that's done right, everything else should follow.


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