IN A RIPOSTE TO NEW BRUTALISM'S REVOLT AGAINST THE FESTIVAL, ALAN POWERS PUTS THE CASE FOR ITS CONTEMPORARY VALUES

摘要

Alan Powers has championed mid-century architecture that developed softer, more decorative and romantic forms of modernism. Here he discusses how changing tides of taste have rehabilitated its values despite continuing adverse criticism. It is received wisdom that young architects in 1951 despised the Festival architecture. Equated with the 'Contemporary Style', an editorial on New Brutalism in Architectural Design in 1955 carried the epigraph, 'When I hear the word "Contemporary" I reach for my revolver.' The revolt is understandable. As Robert Maxwell wrote in 1972, 'the style of the Festival of Britain seemed at best sentimental, at worst, effete. It lacked seriousness. It was bland, and it was parochial. Modern architecture had been sold short in Britain.' Finding objectivity in this conflict is near impossible. The Festival was a conspicuous Aunt Sally, to the extent that it is now a shadowy spectre at which successive generations of students raised on Rayner Banham feel justified in throwing their projectiles.