Atlas of Brutalist Architecture: The New York Times Best Art Book of 2018

First things first. This book is brutalist. Giant, raw, and its weight makes it feels it's made out of concrete.The cover is rugged, just like concrete.Over its 500 plus pages we can see brutalist buildings around the world, and descriptions about their architects and their actual state. All of this is awesome, but there is a small but brutalist mistake. Every single photo is black and white. I understand Phaidon wanted to make it like it was concrete, but it is very boring and we can't have a real understating on how huge these buildings are.Don't get me wrong. I love black and white photos, but they most fulfill a purpose and not being a design gimmick.I was very divided between 3 or 4 stars. I ended up giving it 4 just because it's a huge reference for everyone that want to know a bit more about brutalism, with over 850 examples. From a photographic point of view it deserves 3 stars.

I bought this with money for Christmas, despite it being earmarked for a holiday - but at this price, I just couldn't not buy it.The book itself is a monster, 560 pages, detailing Brutalist architecture, both new and old, around the world - the book is divided into areas, (e.g North America) and gives information into the sites, a little about the history, and the current status; in-use, demolished etc.The binding is extremely tactile, in a number of finishes, and generally smacks of high-quality.I've not had the chance to go completely through this, as it was only received yesterday, but the hour I spent flicking through it, (especially looking for my favourites) was time well spent, and I imagine the rest of the book will be equally pleasurable.Makes a great coffee table book

As pre all the other reviews, this is a huge comprehensive overview that had me pulling out my phone to see more pics & learn more about various buildings.There's no colour photography which I guess would have pushed the price too high. But there's less excuse for the bizarrely cryptic symbols (some of which aren't even in the key) odd two letter country designations (MA for Morocco???) and the fact that entries for demolished buildings are written in different tenses some entries read like it still exists.But these are quibbles and if Amazon had half stars, this would easily be 4.5!

If you love Brualist style this is the book for you, great photos from all over the world and very well indexed, and half the price.

What a fantastic book! Also heavy enough to use for home exercise

It has great photography and made an impressive present for a discerning recipient.

Almost certainly set to be the go-to reference work on this unfairly maligned genre of architecture, Phaidon's hefty tome is a truly wondrous work. Even unopened from the outside it impresses with a deeply textured, tactile cover that invites being stroked in an almost fetishistic way. The interior is stuffed to the gunnels with the most astonishing buildings the world has ever seen - Sci-Fi architecture rendered in glorious grey concrete. As an ex-designer myself I only have one nitpick in that the interior layout with bold type cheek -by-jowl with the pictures is a little ugly but perhaps this is an in-joke cleverly referencing the common misconception as regards Brutalist buildings. That's the way I'll look at it but YMMV. Search around and you should find this at 50% of the RRP and frankly at that price, it's like stealing it. BOOK OF THE YEAR.