Brutalism "Brutalized"!

"Ugliness in Competition"

The Hôtel du Lac, the City Hall, and the Mosquitoes

How ugly is the Hôtel du Lac, isn't it? It is monumentally ugly. It is a concrete monstrosity. It is architectural arrogance itself. The whimsy of a military architect, depressive and pedantic. Another uprooted person, a communist (at best). But what is endearing about this concrete monster? And why do those lunatic Tunisian architects and nostalgic modernist city lovers strive so hard to keep it? Don’t these people have other priorities?

You hear the echoes of murmurs in the halls of our prodigious city hall in Tunis: "We'll let the mosquitoes buzz a little around this ugly subject; it will pass." Beware, all Mediterranean city halls know, in this pre-summer season: mosquitoes are a thorny subject. They bite.

I belong to the mosquitoes who think this building deserves to be preserved. My parents, my country, the decision-makers in education and development in my country and others, and I myself have invested money, time, and brainpower in my education so that I can know exactly why such a building, in its context, should not be demolished — even if it is the ugliest of the century. Just as a book should not be burned and a forest not razed. However, I bitterly understand that the arguments I have are futile in our situation.

So, let’s reason absurdly. Suppose the Hôtel du Lac building is ugly and that its alleged ugliness is a pretext for removing it from the urban landscape of a city like Tunis. Now let’s try to rank this ugliness (from most to least ugly). Let’s take another example (not innocent) to compare with the Hôtel du Lac: the City Hall of Tunis. Let’s submit both works to any competent and independent jury from any school, from any country. Believe it or not, our City Hall would come in first (in all categories) on the ugliness scale!

Only twenty-five years separate the two buildings (1973 vs. 1998); that's not long. So what is the difference? The difference is that the supposed ugliness of the first building stems from a (very) revolutionary current that shook our way of building and making cities; which, in 20 years, swept the world and crossed all kinds of real or imaginary borders. This current — called Brutalism — is important because, though employing radical totalitarianism, it asserts and proves that all men have the same needs — and therefore the same rights. And for that matter, they are equal! Just use concrete and steel and start pre-molding small modules. The assembly possibilities immediately become infinite. Whether in London, Berlin, Boston, or Tunis, one can build modern, functional, durable cities with the same materials and expertise, quickly and relatively well… The Hôtel du Lac in Tunis thus has this great merit of putting the place in the world where it is built on the map of this thought. Whether you agree with it or not, this building is evidence, a testament, a witness. And as such, it deserves attention.

The other building in the ugliness competition, the City Hall, has a very different history. I’m tempted to say it belongs to a current of non-thinking. But I’d rather say it belongs to the reaction against the thinking that generated the first building [and we all know reactionary thinking is hybrid, backward-looking, clumsy, neo-something]. This current assumes that all architecture has the duty and mission to convey a sense of belonging and rootedness. Therefore, it reintroduces local historical architectural elements (or not) and mixes them with others it cannot do without. In the case of our City Hall, it results in a Neo-Almohad-Hafsid-Ottoman-Modern style, on a concrete slab, with smoked glass. And big, architecture without much coherence and unclassifiable except among hybrid styles like Harissa-Mayonnaise.

I only wanted to explain that ugliness, like beauty, cannot be a pretext when it comes to making cities. Ugliness must also be understood and analyzed; and for this, we need witnesses. Some buildings carry a cultural and historical charge that allows them to act as witnesses, and the Hôtel du Lac is one of them.

The decision to demolish (or not) this building — in particular — will be a moment of truth for all of us. A full unmasking. Approving (or not) this demolition permit — specifically — will mark a turning point in Tunis's history and will write the name of the person who signed it in the registers of demolishers, whatever is built in its place. Bringing bulldozers into the city (on this scale) is like bringing police into universities, like bringing the mafia into government; it is very difficult to reverse.

This week, we saw many of our political figures rightly admiring Station F in Paris’s 13th arrondissement. Just six years ago, the building housing this station, an industrial hall, was also judged old and ugly and was about to be demolished. Some mosquitoes in the 13th arrondissement mobilized and succeeded in having it classified. It gave the fabulous station that makes us all so envious.

We are not there yet. But I have huge hope. This hope lies neither in our local authorities, nor in our governmental authorities, nor even among us mosquitoes trying to defend what already seems lost. My hope is in the building itself, believe it or not! Driving past the Hôtel du Lac, a question crossed my mind and gave me a big smile: "How, how, how do you demolish such a structure? How to do it without taking or making others take huge risks?" And remember, Tunis is built on a swamp. Did the demolishers get the demolition work estimated? Did they measure the risks to the surrounding buildings and roads? What if? What if this concrete eagle carries in its very structure the curse of its own permanence? Hope keeps us alive (mosquitoes too). So resist, concrete creature. Resist!

I forgot to say one thing. This is obviously not a valid argument, and this kind of problem cannot be handled emotionally: In my earliest childhood memories, before there was the horrible concrete bridge spanning Avenue Bourguiba, arriving towards Tunis from the southern highway, when the winged silhouette of the Hôtel du Lac appeared, I knew we had arrived home.

Text by Sihem Al Amine
Photo credit: Beshir Riabi