![]() ![]() You might think that observers back then would say things like, “Hoo-boy, these early 1970s buildings sure look early 1970s-ish.”īut back in 1971, the New York Times was most struck by how much the new British embassy resembled the 400-year-old Michelangelo building next door when it should have looked more early 1970s-ish. Some people like them, other people don’t. Today, for example, this 1971 upside down step pyramid is reminiscent of similar Brutalist designs of the era, like the widely hated 1972 Boston City Hall. One weird thing is that people in different eras don’t just disagree over tastes, they can have a hard time seeing what seems obvious to people at other times. Something that fascinates me is the change in tastes over time. Of course, when they were building it, they thought it looked new and clean compared to all the dirty old buildings in Rome designed by Michelangelo, Bernini, and Borromini.īut then it turned out that A) you could jet blast the old piles and get the soot off them and B) their new concrete buildings got dirty really fast, even now when far less coal is being burned. The Brits periodically blast their concrete embassy with water jets to clean it up, so this is about as bad as this 1971 Brutalist effort by Sir Basil Spence ever looks before they hose it down again. They built this in Rome, and next to Michelangelo last building design, the Porta Pia gate in Rome’s Aurelian walls. Oh dear… solid 1/10 for the British Embassy in Rome. ![]()
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