The word comes from Le Corbusier's "béton brut" (raw concrete), used notably for the Cité radieuse in Marseille, completed in 1952. The critic Reyner Banham popularised the term "New Brutalism" in 1955. In the 2010s, the term was taken up to describe deliberately raw websites, in reaction to smooth, standardised interfaces.
Origin and date
Origin: First British and European architecture, then graphic design and the web.
Date: 1950s to 1970s in architecture, and since the mid-2010s in graphic and digital design.
Principles
Show the structure rather than hide it. In graphic design, this means system or monospaced fonts, harsh contrasts, visible grids, little or no decoration, and a deliberate roughness.
Key figures
Le Corbusier, Alison and Peter Smithson and Reyner Banham in architecture. On the web, the Brutalist Websites site, launched by Pascal Deville in 2014, brought the movement together.
Associated typefaces
Default fonts such as Times New Roman or Arial, monospaced typefaces, and very bold grotesques.
Legacy
Digital brutalism has influenced many fashion, culture and design studio websites, and has shown that effectiveness does not always come from the smooth and the consensual.