AHC/WI: Longer-Lasting Brutalism in the UK

The heyday of Brutalism architecture in the UK was from the late 50s to around 1980, and was often in tandem with urban renewal schemes that demolished older structures (if they hadn't been demolished by the Luftwaffe) and brought motorways into city centers. I exaggerate somewhat, but that's a basic view.

What I'm wondering is how that heyday could be made to last longer and what its cultural effects would be - would it require fewer cases like Ronan Point for it to remain publically palatable? How would the urban centres of many smaller urban areas look in a world where Brutalism (and the associated urban renewal schemes of the late 60s, though those are optional) kept going?

And, before anyone else asks, what effect would it have on Doctor Who?
 
More persistent faith in the social-planning ideologies that underlined the urban renewal schemes. This would probably also butterfly away a lot of British and indeed larger-anglosphere culture post-1960s.
 
Brutalism is beautiful in its own right, the problem is it often assoicated with the council housing of the era while well intionited there wasn't the investment needed to be bought in. This investment goes into maintaining estates with everything from making sure lifts work and clean,litter and leaking walls. This is hard for a cash strapped Britain and could be done though with an early limited right to buy and which profits have to go into building new homes and maintaining existing ones. The OTL right buy meant councils couldn't build new council ones. You also need to get councils powerful ,so maybe avoiding Poulson Affair and T Dan Smith and maybe the creation of a more federal Britain in 50's and 60's maybe under Wilson would be a bonus.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
I used to think no thread could be more depressing than those discussing a full-scale nuclear exchange in the early 1980s.

I was wrong.
 
I may have to sig this.
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shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
How Brutal!
Seriously, in aesthetic terms this has got be the single worst architectural movement ever.
If you can look at the Barbican and still say the same thing, I would question your taste.

But in respect of the OP, I think you need it to not be the style of the prefabs, and for it to also have more competent architects working in the style; the primary reason it fell out of fashion was because the people working in it didn't really 'get' brutalism and as a result created hideous structures like the Tricorn Centre. The best route forward would maybe be to 'evolve' the style with modernism, much like how Chichester Festival Theatre is a blend of the styles.
 
I think for this the issue is that after a certain point fashions change, and people want something different. High modernism has gone through the same thing, with it becoming outdated and ugly before becoming popular again. If you want less of a backlash, you need better and more regular maintenance. Or perhaps smaller scale Brutalist housing?
 
^ You beat me to it, Major Major. I was actually gonna mention Clockwork Orange in my earlier post about certain aspects of British culture that would be butterflied away by a continued faith in social-planning ideologies, but I thought people might view that as a bit of a stretch.

But straight from the horse's mouth...

...many aspects of liberal mythology are coming to grief now -- but I don't want to give any examples or I'm going to sound like William Buckley...."

The Hechinger Debacle
 
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