Comment by Fricken

7 years ago

I'm going to borrow a term from architecture. It's brutal. It's a brutalist truck.

Brutalism is ugly. There are no beautiful brutalist buildings though there are plenty of interesting ones. It’s like the joke about how everyone in central Paris wants to work in the Tour Montparnasse because then you can’t see the Tour Montparnasse.

  • Not true. Their starkness and utilitarianism is beautiful, in the eye of the right beholder - and I am one such beholder. I think brutalist architecture is beautiful as it’s bold in its intent, honest in its functional form (it has thingness), and speaks of dreams of the future. I look at a well-executed brutalist structure and get a shiver down my spine - it’s not the thing itself, but what it represents.

    Brutalism has a deep beauty, that ramifies intricately as you examine it further, in the thought and process that went into this triumph of function.

    Much of what we describe as beauty is no more than skin deep - a veneer of curves and shine, under which lurks incredible ugliness in both function and intent.

    Perhaps we are confusing pretty and beautiful.

    • > I look at a well-executed brutalist structure and get a shiver down my spine

      Well, yes, well-executed things tend to imbue some value or ideal. The vast majority of humans are exposed to extremely poor brutalism that is simply oppressive.

  • Brutalist is frightening, it’s cold. It’s uncaring.

    Whether you find that beautiful probably depends on how jaded you are. But it’s a matter of taste.

  • Brutalist buildings are also way more practical than say Victorian ones. Same goes for this car - it won’t win the beauty contest but should hopefully be a lot more practical for those living in rural areas

  • Guy de Maupassant is said to have eaten lunch in the Eiffel Tower every day, because it was the only place in Paris he couldn't see the Eiffel Tower.

  • Brutalist buildings don’t work. Smaller objects may work.

    Source: I worked in a brutalist building for several years. It literally stood in as a prison in movies: terrible every day environment.

    The truck is such a slap in the face to the standard car aesthetic. It’s jarring because it feels different and causes dissonance with what I know cars are allowed to look like. Some people will hate it purely because of that knee jerk reaction.

    I’m not sure I like the look but I really like how iconoclastic it is.

Brutalism is concrete. This truck is not concrete.

  • Brutalism has as much to do with using unadorned, primitive materials as it has to do with actual concrete. It's clearly inspired by expressionism, and I think the expressionists have found their car here.

    • Also volume and scale. Brutalism is about ignoring the human scale and treating us as livestock. Brutalist forms make you feel like a flower in a crack in the sidewalk.

I don’t like this truck, but it looks like it’s from the future. Brutalism is just ugly.

Although maybe when it was trendy, brutalism looked like it was from the future too. Maybe in 20 years, this truck will be “just ugly” as well.