Perpetually divisive, Brutalist landmarks around the world are disappearing fast. A massive 716-page book called “SOS Brutalism – Save the Concrete Monsters!” aims to archive as many of them as possible – and hopefully, inspire public passion to save them before they’re demolished.

Two projects featured in the book were destroyed during the publishing process – London’s Robin Hood Gardens, designed by Alison and Peter Smithson, and New Delhi’s Pragati Maidan, designed by Rewal and Mahendra Raj, both completed in 1972. Since the book came out in November 2017, there have likely been additional losses.

Often described as ugly, cold, imposing and out of scale with human life, these buildings are increasingly considered eyesores, but proponents argue that they’re historically significant and should be preserved. Whatever our personal feelings about their aesthetics may be, they stand as stark representations of the time in which they were built. Many of them represented independence and cultural progress to their communities at the time. Contrary to popular perception, a large number of these structures and other concrete monuments of the era were designed and built as local efforts, not by authoritarian governments.

The book, which comes in both German and English editions, is a global survey of Brutalist architecture from the 1950s to 1970s.

“Some 100 contributors document 120 key buildings from this period, including many previously unpublished discoveries that are in acute danger of loss through neglect of intended demolition. Moreover, the book features overviews of Brutalism in architecture in twelve regions around the world. Case studies of hotspots such as the Macedonian capital Skopje or New Haven, Connecticut, and essays on the history and theory of Brutalism round out this lavishly illustrated book. The supplement collects papers of an international symposium on Brutalism in architecture held in Berlin in 2012.”

The book is part of the larger #SOSBRUTALISM project, a growing database that contains over 1,800 Brutalist buildings.

“The buildings in the database marked red are in particular jeopardy. This is an unprecedented initiative: #SOSBrutalism is open to everyone who wants to join the campaign to save Brutalist buildings! It is a powerful tool that allows fans of Brutalism to communicate with one another across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr etc.”

Anyone can contribute images, information or texts to the website or use the hashtag #SOSBrutalism to highlight a building that might be in danger. The site also encourages the public to join in on current rescue campaigns, and you can browse galleries, maps and timelines of Brutalist architecture around the world.

Japanese architecture may be most closely associated with natural, lightweight materials like wood and paper, but Japan is also home to some of the world’s most incredible concrete architecture, and the two styles aren’t as disparate as they first appear. The nation’s love for a seemingly cold, unyielding material evolved out of resilience after war and natural disasters, and though the character of concrete contrasts with the organic sensibilities of tatami mats, shoji screens and hand-hewn timber, it’s not necessarily at odds with it.

Buildings in Japan are often engineered to be disposable, with an average lifespan of 25 years. Frequent earthquakes and high humidity take a heavy toll on architecture, without a doubt (though this limit was actually imposed by the country’s Land Ministry to boost the economy). Of course, not every building in Japan is razed for a new beginning after a seemingly arbitrary period of time – but the high turnover does increase demand for young architects, stimulating creative experimentation.

Japan first turned to concrete after the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, in which 447,000 wooden houses burned. Depending on how it’s built, concrete isn’t necessarily more earthquake-proof than other materials (and earthquake building codes are still evolving today) but at least it won’t go up in flames. As it turns out, concrete is particularly well-suited to the region, offering thermal mass, resistance to moisture and versatility of form.

The devastation and subsequent Westernization of World War II ushered in a new wave of concrete while irrevocably changing Japan’s society and culture. Outside influences like the budding Brutalist architectural movement came crashing in, colliding with Japanese traditions. Le Corbusier’s National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo (1959) – his only building in the Far East – was completed with the assistance of Japanese apprentices, including Kunio Maekawa and Junzo Sakakura, and helped shape the more radical concrete architecture that was soon to come. Maekawa himself designed concrete landmarks like the Fukushima Education Center (1956).

The 1950s and 1960s brought a cascade of concrete wonders by outsiders and native Japanese architects alike, including Kenzo Tange’s Kurashiki City Hall (1957), Kiyonori Kikutake’s Sky House (1958) and Antonin Raymond’s Gunma Music Center (1961). It also saw the rise of Metabolism, Japan’s own Modernist answer to post-war rebuilding, which famously produced gems like Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower (1972). The Olympic Games in 1964 further transformed Tokyo as scores of new buildings were commissioned, chief among them Tange’s sweeping Yoyogi National Gymnasium.

Critics of concrete architecture might say that its popularity during this period began to erode Japan’s cultural and religious connection to nature, citing particularly “harsh” examples like Toyo Ito’s windowless White U House, but others see it in a different light – literally. Early Japanese Modernists noted the way concrete retained the wooden imprint of its formwork, and how its sculptural qualities allowed them to frame natural surroundings and play with light and shadow in entirely new ways. Its simplicity implies a certain purity associated with Shinto philosophies.

This connection is clear in the work of Osaka-born self-taught architect Tadao Ando, who built on the metaphorical foundations of Kenzo Tange’s legacy. A master of concrete, Ando skillfully sets its rawness and asceticism against the stark brilliance of natural light. Even when a structure doesn’t seem to be part of the natural world, nature can be embedded deeply within it, especially when it acts as a cathedral to hold, uplift and celebrate it. For Ando, who blended the simplicity of concrete with Japanese traditions like tatami module layouts, it’s not unlike clay in the hands of an artist, achieving forms that simply aren’t possible in wood.

That same experimental spirit flows through contemporary concrete structures. Today, concrete enables architects to continue playing with unexpected shapes, unconventional layouts and dramatic cantilevers in spaces of domestic intimacy and somber reflection. From Ryue Nishizawa’s plant-framing Garden & House to the futuristic House in Abiko by Fuse-Atelier, the material continues to shine even in all its supposed dullness.

For more concrete wonders in Japan, check out the Concrete Tokyo Map by Blue Crow Media, which identifies 50 standout structures (including a few oft-overlooked examples.)

Top image: Shinjuku Ruriko-in Byakurenge-do by Kiyoshi-Sei Takeyama + Amorphe

Brutalism may be concrete architecture’s highest historic form, but the material is as versatile as we make it, and it’s got a lot more tricks up its sleeves. Though we may think of it as cold, heavy and solid, these 10 projects ranging from rocky pavilions and airy sculptural memorials to museums that look like they’re made of folded paper show off just how sculptural concrete can be in the hands of an innovative designer.

Crinkled Texture: High School by Wiesflecker Architecture

Set outside a historic high school in Austria, this new, independent building by architect Johannes Wiesflecker stands out for a number of reasons, including the way its modern form contrasts with the older complex behind it. But most eye-catching of all is its dramatic ‘crinkled’ shear wall, hanging about 8 feet in front of a glass facade. The wall is actually a three-dimensional structure in itself, almost like a sculpture that stretches from the roof down to the first floor, and can be viewed from inside as well as out.

Dynamic Angles: Simple House by Moon Hoon

For a home on a windy island in Korea where “weather is the ruler,” architect Moon Hoon needed materials that would provide bunker-like security while also offering a welcoming space to get away. Though his first solution was to sink the home into the ground, the clients wanted something more showy and extravagant. The final design stacks volumes of concrete in a criss-crossed fashion and attaches them together with slim concrete connectors, allowing the wind to flow through the structure. The result feels surprisingly dynamic for a material often associated with heavy, static solidity.

Surprising Shapes & Airy Textures: Shui Cultural Center by West-Line Studio

A latticed formwork of concrete acts as the base of a single zig-zagged roof enclosing the Shui Cultural Center in China, celebrating one of the country’s minority ethnic groups. Its shape pays homage to their language, following the shape of the character for ‘mountain,’ while the pattern of the perforated bronze steel plates of the roof takes inspiration from the Shui’s traditional characters. Architecture firm West-Line Studio wanted the thin metal sheathing to contrast with the heaviness of the concrete, which reveals itself in the building’s interiors.

Thin, Curving Walls: Museo International del Barroco by Toyo Ito & Associates

The thin, curving concrete walls of Toyo Ito’s Museo International del Barroco almost look like they’re made of paper, a quality rarely seen in this material. The firm worked with the Mexican company DANSTEK, which specializes in precast concrete, the develop the concrete walls and slabs which are precast on the exterior and cast in-situ on the interior. Those walls aren’t just decorative, either. They’re load-bearing, and integrated into a structural strategy that gives the building earthquake resistant qualities.

Carved Concrete Designs: Commercial Building by Jorge Urias Studio

Once you get a look at this low-cost commercial concrete structure in Juarez, Mexico, you wonder why we don’t see designs embedded into similar buildings more often. It seems sort of obvious, doesn’t it? Yet decorative and artistic touches are typically left off in favor of fast and simple unadorned surfaces. Jorge Urias Studio carved the tilt-up concrete panels of this building with a bold geometric pattern, giving it a lot more personality than it would have otherwise.

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Sure, Brutalist architecture is divisive, but does that mean we should be wiping it all off the face of the planet? It’s true that these structures are rarely beloved by the residents of their locales; they’re often derided as ‘monstrosities’ with their blocky proportions and large swaths of concrete surfaces. That makes them a major target of trigger-happy developers eager to treat architecture that’s just a few decades old like it’s disposable, making way for new models that will likely be torn down in even less time.

We’re all familiar with planned obsolescence by now, and it’s not surprising to see a lot of the cheaper, flimsier structures of the recent past fall to the wrecking ball – but Brutalist buildings, by their very nature, could stand for centuries if well maintained. Alas, many of them are already gone, and a new series of photographs entitled ‘Brutal Destruction’ captures them in mid-demolition.

Architect Chris Grimley of multidisciplinary design firm Over,Under curated the exhibition, opening this week at Boston’s Pinkcomma gallery. Each building is captured in a raw state of traumatic injury, halfway between existence and nonexistence, and looking at them, you get the sense that people are either cheering for their destruction or mourning their loss, with few feelings in the midrange.

Grimley himself is certainly among the latter. Along with his colleagues at Over,Under, the architect has helmed a number of Brutalism-centric projects, including the book Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston and a map of Brutalist Boston produced in collaboration with Blue Crow Media. Judging by the rate at which these structures are disappearing, that map may already be out of date.

Grimley notes that, even in our contempt for ‘ugly’ Brutalist buildings, we’re being a tad hasty. After all, previous generations tore down Victorian architecture because it was ‘out of date,’ and the window by which something becomes outmoded grows shorter every year.

“We get caught up in notions of what is considered beautiful,” he says. “By the time things are allowed to be considered beautiful again, it’s often too late.”

106 vertical concrete tubes making up a massive disused grain silo in Cape Town, South Africa are sliced and carved from the inside out to produce cathedral-like spaces in this incredible transformation. Architect Thomas Heatherwick and his firm contrasted the cold, aging industrial appearance of the complex with faceted glass and organic shapes for a futuristic looking result, a fittingly monumental setting for the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA), the world’s largest museum dedicated to African contemporary art.

The silo once stood as a symbol of economic progress in 20th century Cape Town, but as the world around it changed, it was abandoned. Sitting empty since the 1990s, the silo had become a bit of an eyesore, especially as the waterfront around it modernized, but remained historically important. Heatherwick’s project creates 6,000 square meters ((64,583 square feet) of exhibition space in a total of 80 individual galleries along with a rooftop garden, book store, restaurant, bar and conservation laboratories.

“We were excited by this opportunity to unlock this formerly dead structure and transform it into somewhere for people to see and enjoy the most incredible artworks from the continent of Africa,” says Heatherwick. “The technical challenge was to find a way to carve out spaces and galleries from the ten-story high tubular honeycomb without completely destroying the authenticity of the original building.”

‘Tubular honeycomb’ is a good way to describe it. The interior photos reveal voids carefully carved out of the bases of the concrete tubes, revealing their geometries in whole new ways. Some of these tubes act as skylights, while others hold glass elevators or spiraling staircases. The museum stands as an awe-inspiring example of how adaptive reuse can reveal qualities you might never have expected in existing structures.