Do you have a campus with significant mid-century Brutalist architecture? Are you a public institution? Mid-century Brutalist buildings used raw concrete to express a fearless honesty about the world and to create large public buildings that increased access to public services with cost effective budgets. And these buildings have inspired a variety of passionate responses - especially the Brutalist buildings at the University of Massachusetts' Dartmouth and Amherst campuses.
The UMassBrut collaborative has organized a symposium on Brutalism + the Public University: Past, Present and Future where participants will discuss Brutalist architecture, both history and design, and explore the issues of preservation and adaption unique to these modernist concrete structures. Both campuses contain extensive examples of mid-century Brutalist concrete architecture by world-renowned modernist architects including Paul Rudolph, Marcel Breuer, Kevin Roche, Hugh Stubbins and Edward Durell Stone (see attached program). These landmark structures will be accessible to attendees in Dartmouth on Friday, Oct. 22, and in Amherst on Saturday, Oct. 23. And each campus will be offering campus walking tours and exhibits that will be free and open to the public.
I am interested in hearing from you: how does your community feel about Brutalist architecture, particularly at your public university? Do you know of any successful efforts to engage and educate the public about the value of Brutalist architecture?
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Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham AIA
Senior Campus Planner
University of Massachusetts
Amherst MA
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