After examining how the early days of the web impacted net art and current web design, it is important to further explore the concept of brutalism, as this design movement has been popular for a number of years and is claimed by many designers as their own.
Brutalism is a style of modernist architecture that originated in the 1950s following Alison and Peter Smithson and Reyner Banham. While modernism prioritised formal simplicity and purity, the goal of brutalism was to push this simplicity in the direction of transparency and material disclosure.
The architectural critic Rayner Banham’s definition of brutalist buildings is as follows:
It is almost unique among modern buildings in being made of what it appears to be made of.
Reyner Banham, “The New Brutalism” in The Architecture Review, 1955
He also identifies three key criteria for classifying a building as brutalist:
The example Banham cited in his article was the Hunstanton School, designed by Peter and Alison Smithson in the early 1950s. He writes:
Hunstanton appears to be made of glass, brick, steel and concrete, and is in fact made of glass, brick, steel and concrete.
After falling into disuse shortly after its emergence, and being criticised for its austere appearance and lack of consideration for the cultural and architectural context of the building site, brutalist architecture has experienced a resurgence in the 2010s, that can be attributed to a renewed interest in minimalism and concrete, a material widely used during the movement’s initial growth.
However, brutalist ideology experienced an unexpected resurgence on the web by presenting itself as a form of protest against the formal and technological standardisation occurring online.
Neo-brutalism not only extends the dominance of minimalism in web aesthetics during the 2010s; it also contests this trend and exposes how formal minimalism is a tool of neoliberalism.
In essence, it critiques the excessive uniformity of web forms, which align with the pure and minimal design espoused by major tech firms, starting from the giant Apple, and by the UX Design theories developed in particular by Don Norman, himself a central figure at Apple in the 1990s.
During the 2000s and 2010s, Apple emerged as a benchmark for user interface and experience design due to the efforts of Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive, who followed Don Norman’s principles.
The first requirement for an exemplary user experience is to meet the exact needs of the customer, without fuss or bother. Next comes simplicity and elegance that produce products that are a joy to own, a joy to use.
The Definition of User Experience (UX), Nielsen Norman Group
This is the time of UX Design, A/B testing, analytics, and conversion. Everything should be straightforward and polished, with no roughness. This results in a visual standardisation which tends towards an extreme formal minimalism that can seem cold and soulless.
If everything is so smooth, why am I so sad?
Anastasia Kubrak, 2018
Amidst a context of standardisation, many designers are positioning themselves as creators of experiences, whose aim is not only to maximise website performance, but also to establish a unique identity and singularity within this ocean of black and white, geometric-neogrotesque fonts and smooth animations.
Minimalism aims to conceal the web medium’s flaws and programmed appearance to create a seamless experience, while brutalism opposes this approach. Instead, it seeks to accentuate the web design’s unique attributes and revive the formula “It is made of what it appears to be made of”.
Brutalism aims to appropriate web objects, placing the standard components of HTML and CSS at the core of design, and minimising the use of Javascript. The online experience should be truthful, genuine and transparent, and henceforth, it must reintroduce an element of irregularity and originality. Most of all, it should establish a bond of trust and dialogue with the user. Brutalism seeks honesty between creator and user, valuing the user as a thinking, free being instead of mere data.
The English term user, originally from French, has dual meaning in its original language of utilizing and of deteriorating. This original ambiguity surrounding the term is fascinating because it expands the notion of user beyond just someone who utilizes something for convenience, in an exploitative way, to also encompass the action of pushing an object to its boundaries and create a different, personal and more meaningful experience with it.
The term “brutalism” has seen a revival in the late 2010s, particularly under the impetus of the Brutalist Websites website, which lists hundreds of websites claiming to be part of this movement. brutalistwebsites.com
While there are numerous websites now claiming to be brutalist, how many of them are really brutalist, in the original definition of Banham? It appears that brutalism has become fashionable again, harkening back to the 90s (the netstalgia) and the Y2K aesthetic, and now represents a potpourri of visual elements rather than a clear ideological standpoint, which is in diametric opposition to its original meaning.
Brutalism can now be observed everywhere and has been embraced by the same ideology it was designed to rebel against.
The Adidas temporary website for the Yung collection’s launch takes full advantage of the ’90s web reference, playing with clear, simple codes and a raw, quirky aesthetic.
The website for the Swedish fashion brand Acne Studios employs more subtle references to the web codes of the 1990s, particularly in the choice of colours and typography, and the overall simplicity and clarity of the layout. acnestudios.com
This leaves us to question whether brutalism still holds any significance in 2023. The Brutalist Websites website has been inactive for some years now, yet the brutalist aesthetic is constantly referenced. Furthermore, it is clear that the trend towards aesthetic homogeneity in the 2010s has since diversified, resulting in a plethora of styles and aesthetics across the web.
While brutalism’s aesthetics may no longer be trailblazing, the movement’s ideology retains a deeply anti-establishment character, particularly given the current context where users are increasingly alienated and turned into mere consumers.
Brutalism as a design movement may now be dead, but its underlying ideals must now more than ever be at the heart of conversations on how to reconsider the relationship between users, the web, technology, and the role of designers as neo-liberal hackers.