December 2022

So there’s a lot of New Brutalism around these days – this is a new house on Beaconsfield Parade Middle Park – my first reaction was, ‘how about some windows’ ?

Then I thought, we’ll if that’s the lounge room up top, then yes great views, and the other rooms below might be bedrooms, so don’t need a view really, and you don’t want passersby peering in…. But there’s a lot of space behind those blank concrete walls. Media room ? Lap pool ? No garden, though there might be a courtyard behind. And it’s not a bad bit of sculpture, lots of ins and outs …but overall a bit aggressively blank and dour. I’m told the architect is @robertsimeoniarchitects.

Last pic what was there before, which VCAT decided was too altered to be considered heritage, and fair enough.

December 225

It’s grown on me since then, it’s rather sculptural, and looks different depending on the sun, and I like the idea of framed views rather than just all glass – though maybe they’ve gone a teeny bit too far in that direction. It’s by @robertsimeoniarchitects who tends to the dark moody spaces and solid concrete volumes. Whoever commissioned it didn’t stay long, it was sold in June this year. Update : I’m told it was Tom Brady of Brady Constructions.

By comparison- not Melbourne but so amazingly sculptural. I got the 2018 ‘Atlas of Brutalist Architecture’ from the library and there’s so many great things I’ve never seen from all corners of the world – and the Italians (of course) were particularly creative /out there – such as the work of Saviero Busiri Vici. Love the quite mad house from 1973 in Rome, a suspended origami almost of concrete forms (1st three pics), and his similar styled apartments called Edificio Pluriuso from 72, also in Rome. I can see in the latter the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright, via the steppy very detailed often concrete work of Carlo Scarpa (another book I’ve got from the library!).

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