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The 17 Most Beautiful Brutalist Buildings in the World

September 4, 2023

From Bulgaria to Buenos Aires, these gems prove that, in architecture, there’s often more than meets the eye

by Jessica Cherner
When it comes to easy-to-spot styles, brutalist architecture is one of the few that come to mind. After all, it’s simple in both appearance and composition: block-like concrete structures that are often stacked atop one another. But there’s something unique about brutalism that its more traditional counterparts lack. There’s an element of futurism that makes looking away from a typical brutalist monolithic structure quite difficult. Principal of her eponymous firm, AD100 architect Elizabeth Roberts would agree when it comes to the unexpected attraction to brutalism. “My first real encounter with brutalist architecture was during my years as an undergraduate studying architecture at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design in Bauer Wurster Hall,” Roberts explains. “The building is an unadorned concrete structure and was designed by the then dean, William Wurster.”
The circa 1964 building is not famous for its look, to say the least. In fact, Roberts admits that some consider it one of the university’s least attractive structures, “but to many of us—including myself—the building and its intentional lack of decoration, and honesty in form and materials seems the perfectly neutral environment to learn all there is to know about architecture,” she continues.
That’s the thing about brutalism: It’s not beloved the way Baroque or midcentury modernism is, but there is such an obvious beauty in its rigid geometry and unquestioning simplicity. Below, AD surveys 17 of the most beautiful brutalist buildings from around the globe.
Photo: Sherry Smith/Getty Images
1/17

San Diego

Geisel Library on UC San Diego’s 180-acre campus was designed by American architect William Pereira in the late 1960s. Constructed entirely of glass and concrete, the eight-story structure was built atop a pedestal that’s become quite iconic among locals. Pereira infused the immediately recognizable brutalism with touches of Space Age modernism and futurism, which pushed the sleepy coastal city into a more contemporary space.
Photo: Getty Images
2/17

Vienna

Dubbed Wotrubakirche, the church in Austria’s capital was the brainchild of local artist Fritz Wotruba. He designed the sculptural church, built between 1974 and 1976, to mimic a set of blocks that are rather loosely piled atop one another. The spaces created between the unadorned blocks are filled with reflective glass, encouraging light to flow through the interiors.
Photo: Getty Images
3/17

Madrid

In Madrid, only a mile or so from the grand Parque del Retiro, the Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza–designed Torres Blancas stand out against their more neoclassical counterparts flanking the city’s streets. Finished in 1969, the towers were densely populated residential buildings that the Spanish architect wanted to resemble enormous trees, complete with trunks and foliage, which, in this case, are rounded balconies. 
Photo: Chris Hellier/Getty Images
4/17

Marseille, France

An ode to the work of famed architect and furniture maker Le Corbusier, Le Brasilia is French brutalism at its finest. Fernand Boukobza designed the split-level apartments, some of which boast expansive loggias, for a developer wanting to offer housing to low- and middle-income families. Though Le Corbusier’s angular work was the architect’s primary source of inspiration, Boukobza’s visit to the Brazilian capital also played into his design. 
Photo: Edmund Sumner/VIEW Pictures/Getty Images
5/17

New Delhi

Until recently, the Mahendra Raj– and Kuldip Singh–designed Palika Kendra building, built in 1984, was one of the tallest buildings in the Indian capital. Standing at almost 300 feet, it’s also one of only a few brutalist buildings in the city. Today, the architecturally significant structure houses the New Delhi Municipal Council.
Photo: AFP/Getty Images
6/17

Paris

Though there are plenty of architects who profoundly embraced brutalism, few did so with the finesse of Marcel Breuer, the grandfather of the famed architectural style. Inaugurated in November of 1958, the Breuer-designed UNESCO headquarters, known in Paris as the Maison de l’UNESCO, is a cubic building intended for permanent delegations and non-governmental organizations. Two additional buildings were designed by French architect Bernard Zehrfuss and Italian architect Pier Luigi Nervi.
Photo: Heritage Images/Getty Images
7/17

Birmingham, England

Birmingham is chock-full of Industrial Revolution–era landmarks that serve as thoughtful reminders of the city’s manufacturing history. The 1964 New Street Signal Box, called the Big Box, was (and still is) inaccessible to the public, making it even that much more intriguing, considering its eye-catching façade. Plus, it’s much taller than the traditional signal box, standing proud at five stories.
Photo: Edmund Sumner/VIEW Pictures/Getty Images
8/17

Taichung City, Taiwan

The National Taichung Theater is tangible proof that good things do, in fact, come to those who wait. The $135 million project in Taichung City took Tokyo-based architect Toyo Ito a whopping 11 years to complete. The city’s newest performance space, where the Taiwanese opera puts on majestic shows, sits at the base of a long tree-lined walkway that delivers on the drama.
Photo: Construction Photography/Avalon/Getty Images
9/17

London

So many historic buildings in London boast a more traditional style of architecture, such as Edwardian or Tudor, but the Royal National Theatre is undeniably brutalist. In 1988, Prince Charles said, the structure was “a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London without anyone objecting.” His low opinion of the public theater was shared by many.
Photo:  Michel Laurent/Getty Images
10/17

Créteil, France

In the Parisian suburb of Créteil, a collection of 10 whimsical buildings, all of which are the exact same height, has garnered the city quite a bit of international fame. Built in 1974 by architect Gérard Grandva, Les Choux (French for “the cabbages”) were meant to be decorated with thousands of ornamental plants and trees, which would both enforce its name and also cause the buildings to change appearance throughout the seasons, but the planting stage never happened.
Photo:  Getty Images
11/17

Lisbon

The front façade of the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo in Lisbon offers an oblique perspective of the symmetrical structure, which is brutalist in practically every regard. Like many buildings in Portugal, this one is backed by layers of symbolism: The two wings and their enormous fortress-like bases were built to last forever, and act as symbols of preservation. It’s a fitting design considering the National Archive houses seemingly the entire country’s centuries-long history.
Photo: Jeff Greenberg/Getty Images
12/17

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires’s Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno, named after one of the May Revolution’s ideologists, is the biggest library in the South American country. The library was designed by Clorindo Testa, Francisco Bullrich, and Alicia Cazzaniga, who happened upon the project by winning a design contest in 1961. However, their designs didn’t come to life until the early 1990s. 
Photo: Getty Images
13/17

Kazanlak, Bulgaria

The Monumento Buzludja was built on the tallest peak in central Bulgaria by the communist government to commemorate a big moment in the country’s history: In 1891, a group of socialists gathered in secret to revolutionize a socialist movement that soon led to the founding of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party. The structure was erected in 1981 after several years of construction. One of the most time-consuming elements was laying the mosaic tiles that line the interior of the monument.
Photo: Getty Images
14/17

Bogotá

La Contraloría General de la República in Bogotá may be undeniably brutialist, but it was actually erected in 1923, in the Colombian capital. It may not be a destination for anyone visiting Bogotá, but architecture enthusiasts tend to delight in the almost hidden marvel. 
Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images
15/17

Montreal

Habitat 67 is one of Montreal’s most visited attractions, which is a bit ironic considering the housing community by Israeli Canadian architect Moshe Safdie’s was the thesis for his master’s at McGill University’s School of Architecture. He built it as a pavilion for Expo 67, but it stuck around all of these years and is now a historically protected architectural community in the Canadian city. 
Photo: Getty Images
16/17

Sydney

The Sirius Building in Sydney was originally built in the 1970s as social housing, but as people started flocking to the Rocks district, prices soared. In 2019, the Berejiklian government sold the brutalist complex to private developers for $150 million. Today, it’s called the Sirius Sydney Harbour building to make it sound a bit more luxurious to prospective buyers.
Photo: Yoshihiro Koitani
17/17

Todos Santos, Mexico

In Baja California Sur, the Ruben Valdez– and Yashar Yektajo–designed Paradero hotel is a brutalist masterpiece nestled within nearly six acres of desert landscape.
These articles are originally available at www.architecturaldigest.com