Despite Brutalism’s apparently stark forms and structures there is often something organic about the shapes. They may be designed with utility and function at their heart but the surfaces look to have been made by a hand rather than a machine which is in contrast to the smooth metal and glass surfaces offered up during the post modern architectural period that followed. The National Library of the Argentine Republic took well over 20 years to design and build and consequently was the result of a number of different government leaderships but it has something animal about it. It could almost be a hulking, towering being from another planet.
