Brutalism, right? That concrete-heavy, cold-as-an-ex’s-stare kind of architecture that makes people think of failed utopias and Soviet apartment blocks full of broken elevators and haunting stairwells. Cozy? That’s the word you’re gonna shove next to it? Sounds…off. But, maybe it’s not. Or maybe it is and I’m just in too deep to stop caring.
It started with a radiator. No, seriously. This rusted, chunky, cast-iron beast in an old apartment in Warsaw—paint chipping, heat clunking through it like a dying horse—but man, the thing radiated something other than just warmth. It had presence. Like it was there, existing unapologetically. And somehow that’s what Brutalism has too. It’s not trying to be cute. Or inviting. But it’s real.
Brutalism is a style with an emphasis on materials, textures and construction, producing highly expressive forms. Seen in the work of Le Corbusier from the late 1940s with the Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles, the term was first used by Alison Smithson in 1953 for an unexecuted project for a house in Colville Place, Soho in which she described its warehouse aesthetic of bare concrete, brick and wood “as the first exponent of the ‘new brutalism’” in England.
https://www.architecture.com/explore-architecture/brutalism
Gray as a Lifestyle Choice
You ever stare at a cinder block and think, “Yes. This could hold my books and my grief.” That’s kind of the thesis here. Post-Soviet Brutalism isn’t about color palettes or feng shui—it’s about honesty. Which sounds moralistic. Maybe it is. Or maybe people are just tired of Instagram interiors that look like oat milk had a baby with anxiety.
The weird thing is, Brutalism wasn’t supposed to be stylish. It was practical. Concrete was cheap. The structures had to last. No ornaments, no frills. But somehow that absence has become the aesthetic. And now, your aunt’s old credenza from 1972, covered in dust and holding a chipped ashtray, feels…comforting? I don’t know. Maybe it’s nostalgia. Or just the need for texture.
A polarizing style that appears aesthetically crude and is what you’d expect from a government building, university library, parking garage, or high-rise housing, Brutalist buildings are rough, minimalist structures. They lack flourishes or classic beauty and are popular locations in films and television series about urban dystopias.
https://www.thespruce.com/what-is-brutalism-4796578
The Soft Side of Hard Things
Here’s the trick people keep missing: brutalist doesn’t mean barren. You can throw a fuzzy blanket on a concrete bench. You should, actually. The contrast is where it gets interesting. Harsh meets soft. Soviet meets candlelight. An ash-gray wall with a mustard couch that’s seen some things.
There’s this couch in a friend’s flat in Gdańsk—it’s sunken in the middle, one leg’s been replaced with bricks. But when you sit on it under that flickering wall sconce mounted on a slab of unfinished plaster? Pure joy. Not because it’s beautiful in the showroom sense. Because it feels lived-in, like someone’s smoked there, fought there, maybe cried there. Maybe all three in one night.
For many designers involved in the movement, Brutalist architecture was not meant as a provocation. Quite the opposite—the style was meant to hold nothing back from the public, showing laypeople that modernist architecture was in fact compatible with daily life. In that way, Brutalism aspired to bring the world toward a utopian ideal, a tendency that became particularly obvious as the style traveled beyond Western Europe.
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/what-is-brutalism-brutalist-architecture-art-1234730107/
Ugly, But in a Hug-You-Anyway Kind of Way
Brutalism doesn’t pretend. That’s maybe the biggest appeal. No pastel lies, no soft-focus deceit. If your living room has exposed conduit and a bookshelf made from repurposed scaffolding, people don’t expect you to have matching towels. There’s freedom in that.
And yeah, maybe it’s kind of punk. But a weird Eastern Bloc punk, one that eats pickled cabbage and reads poetry about frostbitten hands. This isn’t rebellion by way of neon. It’s rebellion by way of not caring if the coffee table has rebar sticking out the side. (Just tape it down, you’re not a monster.)
Plants. Seriously, Just Add Plants.
Okay, so you’ve got your bare walls, your chipped floor tiles, your unpainted drywall. Cool. Now don’t be a fool—add a fern. Or five. Because Brutalism without green is just sadness. It’s like borscht without sour cream. Still edible, but a little tragic.
There’s something deeply satisfying about vines crawling over concrete, like nature’s trying to hug the trauma out of old buildings. And in your living room, that juxtaposition works like magic. Brutalism gives structure; the plants give life. It’s a passive-aggressive friendship, but it works.
The Furniture Doesn’t Match and That’s the Point
Stop trying to make everything symmetrical. One side has an armchair from a Bulgarian flea market. The other? A milk crate. That’s the vibe. You’re not going for balance, you’re going for mood. Mood that says: “Yes, I live among the ghosts of failed socialism, but also I own a lava lamp.”
There was this apartment in Tbilisi I stayed in once. Wallpaper peeling, electrical wiring probably illegal, but they had this steel filing cabinet next to a velvet armchair. And it just…made sense. Because Brutalism in the living room isn’t about achieving anything. It’s about accepting the mess.
There is arguably no architectural movement more polarizing than Brutalism, and Trump is hardly the only person to have called styles derivative of Brutalism “ugly.” The reasons why typically rest on the unflattering look of it all: Brutalism is thought to be an eyesore, a relic of a different era far removed from our own. In 2024, NPR interviewed residents of Washington, D.C., about what they thought of the FBI’s Brutalist headquarters. One said, “I work right across the street from it, so I have to look at it every day that I’m in the office, and it’s just—it’s so ugly.” Another interviewee said that the building looked like “a prison with windows, just a concrete slab stuck in the middle of the city.”
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/what-is-brutalism-brutalist-architecture-art-1234730107/
A Word on Lighting: Dim It or Regret It
One overhead LED will kill the entire thing. Don’t do it. Seriously. Post-Soviet brutalism needs low lighting. Yellowish, inconsistent, slightly depressing lighting. Like you’re telling secrets or reading government documents by candlelight. That kind of glow.
Maybe a desk lamp salvaged from an abandoned office. Maybe a Soviet wall sconce that looks like it might catch fire if stared at too long. If it flickers? Even better. Shadows soften the brutal, and soften is not a dirty word here. Not if you earn it.
It’s Not Sad, It’s Sentimental
People mistake it for bleakness. That’s their problem. They see concrete and think decay. But if you’ve ever seen a brutalist stairwell at dusk with a tiny ceramic cat on the landing, you know it’s something else. There’s a tenderness in the toughness. A softness hiding behind the slabs.
Post-Soviet Brutalism is not cozy in the American way. It’s not throw-pillows-and-latte-foam cozy. It’s warm socks on a freezing radiator. It’s silence in thick walls. It’s the smell of old books in a cabinet that’s seen regime change. You have to sit with it. Let it talk back.
In Closing, or Maybe Just Mid-Sentence
I guess what I’m trying to say is… if your living room feels a little too polished, like it’s begging for approval, throw a chunk of Soviet-era concrete in there. Literally or metaphorically, up to you. You don’t need to live in a tower block to borrow its soul.
Put up the chipped plaster, leave the walls raw, keep the radiator even if it doesn’t work. Let the furniture clash. Keep it weird. Brutalism, the post-Soviet kind, is cozy—not because it tries to be, but because it doesn’t. And maybe that’s the whole point. Or maybe I just miss that couch in Gdańsk.
Last modified: July 23, 2025
