Aesthetics as a Practical Ethic

Abstract

From the mid-1950s, international approaches in architecture began to be influenced by the English New Brutalist movement, pioneered by the office of architects Alison and Peter Smithson. The movement espoused an ethical framework of design based on social concerns and the truthful expression of materials, function and structure.While founded as an expression of an ideal social utopia however, Brutalism had devolved by the 1960s into a pursuit of its visual attributes and has, in some cases, become a pejorative term used to describe monolithic buildings of raw concrete construction that impose themselves on their surroundings.In recent years, a number of architectural critics have contributed to a growing reassessment and rehabilitation of Brutalist architecture. Much of this reassessment, it is argued, is a factor of the image-related power of Brutalist buildings as compelling symbols of their time.This article examines the design of Sydney's Sirius Apartments and its historical and contemporary significance as a Brutalist artefact, situating it within the framework of Banham's ethic/aesthetic dichotomy and the centrality of the image in the Brutalist ethos. The article argues that the formal and material aesthetics of the Sirius Apartments can be interpreted as a practical ethic, a powerful image of an egalitarian ideal expressed in architecture.