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Greyscape celebrates Brutalist, Modernist and Constructivist architecture. We bring you a carefully considered edit of the best examples of those designs from around the world.

Greyscape was born out of a passion for under-appreciated 20th Century design. Originally launched in 2016 as a passion project an Instagram account, our audience grew fast, with thousands sharing a similar interest in game-changing buildings. We now have an unrivalled position as a crowdsourced archive of little and well-known architecture. Greyscape is a destination where everyone can learn, share and interact with the very best in Brutalism, Modernist and Constructivist design.

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A place to explore Brutalism, Modernism, Constructivism and the concrete world.

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Vila Hasek (1930-31) in Jablonec nad Nisou, Czech

Vila Hasek (1930-31) in Jablonec nad Nisou, Czech Republic. A three-storey, Functionalist L-shaped family home designed by German architect Heinrich Lauterbach for costume jewellery exporter Jaroslav Hásek. Jablonec nad Nisou is sometimes referred to as the City of Glass, a nod to its long and successful history of manufacture and exporting of glass and jewellery worldwide.

Enthused by the 1929 WuWA exhibition in Breslau (today’s Wroclaw), Hásek commissioned Lauterbach having seen his house at the Wohnungs und Werkraumausstellung, Workplace and House Exhibition- usually known as WuWA. The exhibition on a large site showcased 32 modernist buildings and a nursery surrounded by well thought out public spaces, all built in 3 months by leading modernist architects. Here was an inspiring blueprint for how a modern home in a modern town could look and function, conceived as a creative response to the post WW1 housing shortage. Lauterbach, who had studied under Hans Poelzig was influenced by the Bauhaus movement, and his own home in Breslau, Haus Lauterbach is recognised as an important example of his architectural vision.

Image Martin Veselka CC BY SA 4.0

Sitting on Krakow’s Vistula River is Hotel Forum

Sitting on Krakow’s Vistula River is Hotel Forum. Its striking brutalist design by architect Janusz Ingarden was conceived in the 1970s at a time when the city wished to develop its potential as an international historical destination.

Krakow, one of Poland’s oldest cities in the country, was made its Medieval capital in 1038. Polish kings were crowned at Wawel Castle and its impressive medieval architecture has survived. At national level, Poland had began its application to list several cultural assets of the city. This included nearby Auschwitz-Birkenau as a UNESCO World Heritage site in the mid-1970s, shortly after UNESCO established the World Heritage Convention in 1972. Poland was one of the early signatories to this convention and took steps to nominate Auschwitz-Birkenau, Kraków’s medieval Old Town and the Wielicza Salt mine.

From conception to completion things did not run smoothly and Hotel Forum was hit by so many delays it didn’t welcome its first visitors until 1989 as profound changes were happening in Poland. By 2002 with overwhelming operating costs and international hotel groups opening in Krakow, it closed its doors and hasn’t been operating as a hotel since.

It did take on a second life as local creative groups used it officially and unofficially for events.

Today it remains a huge presence crying out for an imaginative developer.

Photo with thanks to @modarchitecture

Bohuslav Fuchs’, Czech architect whose life was

Bohuslav Fuchs’, Czech architect whose life was so impacted by the winds of political changes that swept across 20th Century Czechoslovakia.

This is his 1936 Petrákova Vila in Brno’s Pisárky district, a home for friends and business partners with whom he co-owned AKA, an interior design company. It’s considered an outstanding example of Functionalism.

Fuchs (1895-1972) is acknowledged as one of the most highly thought of Czechoslovakian architects of the interwar period but spent the last 25 years of his life stifled by the political leadership of his country.

In the 1920a he worked for Brno’s building authority rising to Chief Urban Architect. Fuchs, was also a member of the city’s ‘Group of Fine Artists’. In the late 1920s he chose to focus solely on his architectural practice which he’d already been operating from a villa he designed and lived in. Contributing to Brno’s 1928 Werkbund Exhibition with Josef Štěpánek, their ‘triple house’ was highly thought of and his practice thrived. Who knows how his career would have developed had Czechoslovakia not been invaded. Post-war with the Communists in power the practice closed and Fuchs became Dean of the Architecture faculty of Brno TU.

However, along with many artists and designers, he fell out of favour with the Soviet authorities, the country was in the grip of Social Realism, and Fuchs whose name was so strongly associated with Modernism, was dismissed from his post in 1960. He continued working albeit at a much less prominent level.

In 1968 during the Prague Spring he was honoured as a ‘National Artist’. This short-lived period stopped abruptly when Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in August ‘68. After the Warsaw Pact invasion, Fuchs again suffered, the Communist ‘normalisation’ made sure to undo all the efforts of the Prague Spring activists and Fuchs survived by accepting small scale projects. In that sense he said better than others who were forced into exile.

Today his legacy is fully acknowledged and amongst his many impressive buildings is the Avion Hotel, Jakub Deml house, Zeman's cafe and the Třeština power plant.

Image Martin Strachoň / Wikimedia Commons CC BY SA 3.0 @bazi_cz

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