Erno Goldfinger - Brutalist architecture - first ideas

One of the main reasons I chose to investigate Erno Goldfinger in this project was because is architectural style had such a clear and commanding aesthetic. As a starting point I have been trying to get my head around this 'brutalist' style through drawing and very much taking it at surface value. I studied the buildings in a very representational way briefly, before moving on to trying to express more of their mood or character and thinking about things such as texture and shape in a way less explicitly connected to real examples of brutalist architecure.

I started out just drawing some of his buildings
just to familiarise myself with them.

Continuing with studies of his buildings, I
started using graphite as well as pen to try
and communicate the idea of dirty, old
concrete, and just to add some atmosphere
in general.

This was my favourite study and one where the accidental smudges of graphite
seemed to me to express the most. I can't really put my finger on why, but i think
it might have something to do with the fact that they are less deliberate and so
seem to have evolved more naturally.

I inverted the photograph of this sketch to for a
mess around and I do quite like the effect but the
grey is obviously lost and i think that's quite an
important element in these images, it refers to
the use of untreated concrete in 'brutalist'
architecture which is a key feature.    

I also used this edit on my phone called 'lines',
I'm not really sure what it does technically but I
quite like the look you end up with. Again, though,
there is of course no grey. 

The pen from that previous page had showed
through to the other side, so in order to not
waste that page i decided i'd use the bits
which had showed through in isolation from
the context of the rest of the drawing, tracing
over in pencil and ending up with this
subsequently ambiguous drawing. This was
the point where i started to move away from
representational drawings and to work in a
more abstract way using the shapes in
brutalist buildings now i felt a bit familiar
with them.    

I started messing around with just the
shapes for a bit but this type of thing doesn't
look solid enough to really represent
brutalism really.

Using black card helped to make this more
abstract stuff a bit more solid. 

,

I also went back to some drawing from reference, but this time trying
to make the lines and shapes bolder as before, in my first lot of
drawings, the lines were quite wobbly and the drawings had a sort of
delicate aesthetic which, whilst nice as drawings, didn't to much to
really convey the character of brutalist architecture.  

I took the bold shapes, cut outs and bolder lines
and made more completely abstract images. I
also started using masking tape and colouring
over the whole page with graphite to achieve
more crisp, hard edges, an effect i quite like.   

I noticed whilst i was working on the above,
that quite a nice effect is achieved just by
colouring over the masking tape whilst it's
stuck down, so I made another picture which
was just that, it gives a bit more texture. 

I made the photograph black and white to try
and bring out the textures and edges a little
more. 

I tried the same technique of masking off the
page with tape and then pulling it off using ink
instead of graphite, a mixture of sort of dry
brush and watered down ink and I think it does
create quite a nice representation of concrete.

The same thing but cutting out the shapes and
combining them with consistently painted
piece of card I had lying around.

     





















Although I'm pretty happy with my experimentation up until this point it only really tackles the physical aspect of Erno Goldfinger's architecture. I think I need to delve a little deeper into the theology behind brutalist architecture, specifically the rules by which the plans were drawn and the buildings were constructed, and then maybe try and construct my work according to those rules as well. I also think I want to try and work bigger and with paint, maybe on different surfaces. Depending on how difficult it is I think I might try and make some concrete, or at least something which could replicate it. I think i will also try and study some of the architectural drawings/ plans of goldfinger's buildings and maybe do some drawing using a ruler and motifs from them to better represent the idea that the inspiration for my fairly abstract imagery is grounded in something which was real, took a lot of planning and had to physically work as buildings.