D.C.’s Brutalist Phase: National Building Museum

Most of us will say we hate Brutalism. That’s the post-war architecture style based on exposed, rusticated concrete and outsized geometric forms. I think most everyone hates Washington, D.C., unless, that is, “fleecing people who work, prosper, have children, love freedom, or want a better future” is your profession. I’m with ya, friends. Washington Brutalism would seem, then, to be uniquely vile, like leprosy. Not that I’m a contrarian, but Brutalism comes in many shapes and sizes as well as 50 shades of gray cement, gravel, crushed stone, slag, and ash.

Capital Brutalism, the very good exhibition at the National Building Museum in the Swamp, reflects on the history and look of a selection of Washington’s most distinctive, distinguished, and polarizing Brutalist buildings. I’d been to the museum only once before. What an elegant Roman pile, and what good stories this offbeat place tells.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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Most of us will say we hate Brutalism. That’s the post-war architecture style based on exposed, rusticated concrete and outsized geometric forms. I think most everyone hates Washington, D.C., unless, that is, “fleecing people who work, prosper, have children, love freedom, or want a better future” is your profession. I’m with ya, friends. Washington Brutalism would seem, then, to be uniquely vile, like leprosy. Not that I’m a contrarian, but Brutalism comes in many shapes and sizes as well as 50 shades of gray cement, gravel, crushed stone, slag, and ash.

Capital Brutalism, the very good exhibition at the National Building Museum in the Swamp, reflects on the history and look of a selection of Washington’s most distinctive, distinguished, and polarizing Brutalist buildings. I’d been to the museum only once before. What an elegant Roman pile, and what good stories this offbeat place tells.