Brutal Wales/Cymru Friwtalaidd
Simon Phipps
September Publishing, £30

WHEN you think of Wales, do you think of the imposing medieval fortresses of Conwy and Caernarfon built by Edward I to subdue those “mere Welshmen” who objected to his invasion of their land? Or perhaps the industrial scars of slate and slag and towering craggy mountains, shrouded in grey? These dramatic views are among the things that draw tourists from around the world to Cymru. 

Also to be found, but not in any holiday brochures, are many barely noticed examples of postwar brutalist architecture, which you could argue have a similarly bold aesthetic, that remain largely unloved, neglected and endangered. 

In his new book Brutalist Wales/Cymru Friwtalaidd, the fourth in his series of location-specific photographic records of postwar architecture, Simon Phipps has travelled around the country photographing some of the most interesting examples of its mid-20th century architecture.

Brutalism is the name given to a style of postwar modernist architecture often favoured by local authorities rebuilding after the war, particularly for public buildings and social housing. The style is monumental, solid and utilitarian; some well-known British examples are London’s Barbican estate and the Hayward Gallery, and such buildings are often disliked for their heavy forms and lack of ornamentation. 

This smallish hardback collection of photos is introduced, in English and Welsh, by social historian John Grindrod, who gives us the social and historical context of Wales’s postwar development. There are then over 170 pages of Phipps’s black-and-white images of mid-century postwar structures: theatres, libraries, town halls, social housing, shopping centres, bridges and heavy industry. 

At the back of the book is an essay by writer and artist Mark Durden, again translated into Welsh, a useful location map and a list of buildings that identifies their architects. 

Phipps’s origins as a sculptor are evident in the way he photographs each building and industrial site, always finding the best shapes, shadows and dramatic angles. Unusually, the photos are sorted not by geographical location or even by the style of the building but by similarities, and sometimes contrasts, in structure and form: for example, the textured walls of Monmouth House in Cwmbran with those of Conwy Civic Hall, nestling comfortably into Conwy’s castle walls; the vertical lines of Swansea Leisure Centre and Llanelli magistrates’ court; the brick-built blocky shapes of Trostre Steelworks placed next to West Lee flats in Cardiff. 

This can be frustrating if all you want to see are more pictures of a particular building without having to hunt for them, but these intriguing juxtapositions force the viewer to look closer in order to solve the puzzle that this presents: what connection am I looking for here? Why did he put those particular photos together? 

Despite the book’s title, not all of the buildings depicted sit strictly within the brutalist style: some are more modernist in a wider sense and some merely the logical outcome of industrial necessity. There is even a sneaky hint at 1980s postmodernism with the inclusion of Richard Rogers’s former Inmos factory in Newport. But given the tumultuous industrial history of Wales, it does seem appropriate to include, for example, the concrete funnel-shaped filtration plant at Llanwern steelworks, perhaps as important a monument to the Welsh story as the motte-and-bailey castles of the marcher lords — though, given the current state of the Welsh steel industry, unlikely to remain standing for as long. 

As with any architectural style, there is good, bad and mediocre. Some of the standout pieces to look for are the irresistibly photogenic Margam Crematorium; Harlech’s grade-II listed Theatr Ardudwy by Ralph and Elizabeth Foulkes, now empty, its fate undecided; the Brambell building in Bangor, which somehow manages to be reminiscent of both Boston City Hall and the Parthenon; and the mighty Aberystwyth Arts Centre by Dale Owen, which is about as monumentally brutalist as it gets. 

These sit alongside images of social housing in dire need of maintenance and the terrifying Trawsfynydd nuclear power station, designed by none other than Basil Spence, perhaps short of inspiration after the triumph of Coventry Cathedral.

Because buildings of this type can be unpopular and are also notoriously expensive to maintain, as they age there is often pressure to demolish rather than refurbish. A recent casualty that did not quite make it into this book is Wrexham’s police station, demolished in 2022. Sadly, Swansea Civic Centre and Argoed School have so far failed attempts to list them and are unlikely to survive redevelopment.

Simon Phipps has created a book that is both thought-provoking and a joy to look at. He shows us the power and austere beauty of these “ugly, lovely” Welsh buildings and invites greater appreciation of our urban and industrial landscapes. 

At the same time it is impossible to get away from a feeling of melancholy when reflecting on how many of the images also depict the decline of industry and the neglect of social housing that has become the norm since the initial optimism of Britain’s postwar building boom.