In the Fall 2022 semester, the Yale School of Architecture Gallery will host a traveling exhibition that began at the DAM (German Architecture Museum) in Frankfurt am Main in 2017. The SOS BRUTALISM exhibition represents a selection from the first-ever global survey of the Brutalist architecture of the 1950s to the 1970s. The term Brutalism does not originate from the word “brutal”, but rather from the French word brut, meaning “direct, rough and dry.”

The exhibition is organized in 11 geographical regions and seven thematic chapters, giving a sense of the breadth of Brutalism’s global spread and nuanced depth in understandings some of the features, complexities, and critiques of the movement. In addition to these illustrated panels, the exhibition at the Yale School of Architecture includes several unusually large-scale models and a series of cast and 3D printed miniatures. For this instalment, a new thematic chapter was added to the exhibition covering the unique legacy of Brutalist architecture in New Haven.