Siting is important

 

How a building is sited in a city is important. This apartment building in the western part of London absolutely dominates the view when heading east on one of the city's main traffic arteries. It appears to be foreboding, massive hulk of a building towering over the green forest canopy.

It is a pity this building isn't prettier. Sadly, it is just plain, big and plain. It doesn't even have the dramatic look of yesterday's in look -- brutalism.

Brutalist buildings are characterized by a massive, monolithic and 'blocky' appearance with a rigid geometric style and large-scale use of poured concrete. This apartment building answers many of the demands but come up short when it comes to style. This building is not stylish.

Both the French and the Brits experimented with brutalist apartment buildings decades ago back in the last century. Some have been demolished using the implosion technique. Some are still in use. But some are being updated and upgraded and flipped to the upscale side of life. Brutalist apartment building were originally designed to house the proletariat.

Many brutalist apartment buildings have been used to represent the future gone sadly awry. Think of the Hunger Games. A major set in that film is a brutalist apartment complex on the outskirts of Paris. No films crews are to be found outside the brutally plain London, Ontario, apartment building.

The Huffington Post did a feature on the apartment complex featured in the Hunger Games.