Brutal North: Post-War modernist architecture in the North of England is a look at the architecture in the north of England specifically documenting the Brutallist architecture spanning areas such as Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and more.  This book tells a story of the post-war architecture in the north of England and in some ways shows the resilience and determination of a society to rebuild their communities and their homes.

Simon Phipps born in Leeds and now based in London is a renowned architecture photographer especially with his work focusing on post war modernist architecture.  He is a sculpture graduate from Royal College of Art which I think is partially where his love for architecture came from.

He has several pieces of work in the same Brutal category such as Brutal London, Brutal Scotland, Brutal Wales etc.  This piece will focus on his work from Brutal North which seems fitting since it partly relates to where he was born in the north.

This book does a really great job of capturing the somewhat forgotten architecture of the north.  Brutalism can sometimes be seen as quite jarring and in some ways difficult to look at but the way Phipps has captured these buildings is quite inspiring and he frames them in a new light.  He takes what is a rough concrete shell and shows them in a way that makes these buildings look powerful, enduring and beautiful. 

What I have noticed from these photographs is Phipps tends to use a lot of sharp edges in the shots.  Rather than just photographing a building face on he tends to find the corners which makes the buildings look very jagged and formidable.  I don’t know if this was an intentional choice but I do really like the approach he has taken when photographing these buildings.

From what I can tell, Phipps has a deep appreciation for the brutalist architecture and how important it was for our country to rebuild after the second world war.  One of the reasons that brutalist architecture came about post war was because it was a cost saving way of building.  In a time when billions had already been spent on war, we as a society needed to rebuild.  The cheapest and easiest way to do that was brutalism and what started as a cost saving method of building homes and infrastructure turned into a whole architectural movement.

Brutalist architecture can sometimes be seen as a touchy subject with people.  Some love the exposed simplicity of concrete while others hate it and find it boring and uninspiring.  It can even be seen as a cop-out by developers to try and save money.  Why spend money creating something visually pleasing when you can save some money and create a building that looks like a block of concrete?

No matter my feelings on brutalism, I do think this book is extremely important in documenting our history.  I grew up in the north, a lot of the buildings in this book I would sometimes see on a daily basis.  Unfortunately though, a lot of northern brutalist buildings are getting torn down now simply because they have been neglected and left to decay for too long and the cost of repairs is just too much.  

One of the more noticeable instances of this is the Trinity Square car park in Gateshead, more commonly known as the Get Carter car park.  If you haven’t guessed it, this building was featured in the 1971 film Get Carter starring Michael Caine.  Now in its stead stands a modern shopping centre and student housing.

Simon Phipps does directly talk about this destruction in the introduction of this book and I think that’s why Brutal North is such an important piece of documentary photography.  It feels like these old structures are being torn down left and right.  Without Brutal North we may forget what our cities and homes looked like and the importance of the brutalist architecture that created a fast and cheap way to rebuild after the devastation of the second world war.

Most of the buildings in this book date between the late 50s to early 80s so it’s not so much a view of modern brutalism.  Which to an extent I think is a bit of a shame.  I would have liked to see a contrast between the older and newer brutalism.  To see what change, if any, newer brutalism had compared to the brutalism of post war britain.  Like I mentioned earlier, after the war brutalism was needed as a cost saving way to rebuild after our country had all but ran out of money.  Now it seems brutalism is only used so developers and corporations can save money and pad their pockets.  This contrast is something I might have liked to see in this book, to see if the values of people have changed the look of brutalism.

Quite frankly, this book does a beautiful job of documenting the brutalist northern architecture after the second world war and provides a view on how that war shaped the architecture at the time.

I would highly recommend this book to you all, whether you get it for the architecture or the photography.  Either way, it is a fantastic and highly interesting piece of work by Simon Phipps.  I am very much interested in architecture photography myself so I did find a lot of inspiration from his photographs.  I will definitely make it my goal to try and get my hands on the rest of his brutalist works and I would highly suggest you do the same.

Brutal North by © Simon Phipps Published by September Publishing