‘Brutalist Paris’ is a book that lays bare the legacy of the city’s concrete architecture

The photography and essays in Brutalist Paris are underpinned by five years of research into modernist architecture in the French metropolis; they celebrate the city's brutalist architecture, and also make up the first, expansive architecture book from Black Crow Media, long-time specialist in concrete cartography. 

With photography by Dr Nigel Green of Photolanguage and words by Bartlett associate professor Dr Robin Wilson, Brutalist Paris is very far from being a light-hearted skim over the uncompromising aesthetics of the city’s post-war concrete architecture. Instead, it puts the spotlight on 50 key buildings, connecting them with seven academic essays that look deep into French culture’s relationship with architecture, modernity, and social change. 

Inside Brutalist Paris

Brutalism will always be controversial, despite the uptick in interest driven almost entirely by this architecture’s undeniable aesthetic presence. Paris has many icons of the genre, including important works by Oscar Niemeyer’s abstract Communist Party Headquarters (1968-80), Lucio Costa and Le Corbusier’s Maison du Brésil (1959), and Harry Seidler’s Australian embassy of 1978, designed with Marcel Breuer and Pier Luigi Nervi, all represented here.

Arguably, such works were underpinned by France’s much stronger modernist – and socialist – tradition. The flipside was the uncompromising mass housing projects that sprang up in the suburbs, intended as epic and soul-stirring, but resulting as forbidding and bleak. The inclusion of the occasional ruin highlights the dichotomy of raw concrete, forever fated to carry strong opinions, whether positive or negative.

Blue Crow Media’s maps are a concrete-lover’s dream, with over 50 published since 2017. These include explorations of Berlin, Montreal, Boston, Los Angeles, Prague and its recent study of modern Cambridge architecture. We welcome its shift into books – and happily, the end papers still contain a map.

Brutalist Paris, Robin Wilson, photographs by Nigel Green, Blue Crow Media, £24, published 1 March 2023

BlueCrowMedia.com (opens in new tab)

Also available to pre-order at Waterstones.com (opens in new tab)