Autumn 1969: This time it’s precast

Here’s the pitch: our hero (let’s call him Marcel) is a tortured but visionary Hungarian-born architect, trained at the Bauhaus but seeking to rebuild his life in post-war America. He is driven by a single obsession: the precast concrete structural facade… 

Brady Corbet’s movie The Brutalist has caused something of a stir in the architectural community. Feathers have been ruffled by its semi-fictionalised depiction of the legendary modernist Marcel Breuer, and the artistic licence the director has taken concerning his 1950s masterpiece, the St John’s Benedictine monastery in Minnesota.

But what if Corbet had focused his storyteller’s gaze on Breuer’s later years instead? A glance through the Concrete Quarterly archive suggests it may have made for a less controversial tale, albeit with a slightly heavier emphasis on modular construction techniques.

Take the 1969 Torin Corporation headquarters in Torrington, Connecticut – billed as “the latest example of Breuer’s continuing search for a beautiful and appropriate expression of the precast concrete structural wall”. There would have been drama (“deep shadows are cast that accentuate the rhythm of the facades”), and a twist in the tale (“weathering is likely to increase and enhance the general effect”). “Rather spectacular”, was CQ’s verdict.

Our correspondent was particularly impressed with the efficiency of the precast design, based on a single repeated module, “appearing to kill several birds with one unit”.

Each was structural, self-finished externally and internally, housed mechanical and electrical equipment, and provided a degree of sun control.

In other words, Breuer had arrived at a solution as succinct as it was elegant. So, perhaps most importantly, had Corbet decided to embrace the possibilities of precast, there would have been no danger of The Brutalist’s bladder- straining three-and-a-half hour run time.

A book, The World Recast: 70 Buildings from 70 Years of Concrete Quarterly, is available from www.concretecentre.com/publications

Access the full CQ archive here.