Concrete Mon Amour: The Raw Imprint of Modernism reframes the brutalist structures of the mid-to-late twentieth century through entirely new photography by Stefano Perego, asking why these unadorned, monumental forms continue to generate both reverence and resistance.
About This Book
Brutalist architecture occupies a peculiar position in the contemporary imagination — simultaneously dismissed and fetishised, endangered and celebrated. Perego's photography confronts this paradox directly, capturing concrete structures across diverse settings and refusing easy conclusions. The images hold the tension between a building's raw materiality and the idealism embedded in its form. Concrete Mon Amour is not a preservation argument or a nostalgia project; it is a sustained visual inquiry into what makes these modernist relics persist — their audacity, their material honesty, or simply their refusal to disappear. Essential reading for anyone engaged with architectural history and the contested legacy of twentieth-century modernism.
Key Features
- 256 pages of all-new large-format photography of brutalist and modernist concrete structures across diverse international settings
- Photography by Stefano Perego
- Published by Gestalten, ISBN: 9783967042016
What You'll Discover
- How brutalist concrete structures embody the visionary idealism of mid-to-late twentieth-century modernism — and how that idealism reads today
- The paradox at the heart of brutalism: buildings that are simultaneously raw and deliberate, unadorned yet freighted with meaning
- How a building's permanence across diverse geographic and social settings shapes — or undermines — its relevance over time
- What sustains ongoing fascination with these structures: monumentality, material honesty, and an audacity that most contemporary architecture avoids
About the Author
Stefano Perego is a photographer whose work in Concrete Mon Amour comprises entirely new imagery produced for this publication. His practice engages directly with the material and spatial character of brutalist and modernist architecture across a range of international contexts.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 256
- Dimensions: 290 x 225 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783967042016
- Publisher: Gestalten
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects, architectural historians, and design practitioners with an interest in brutalism, modernist heritage, and the cultural politics of concrete construction.