Oscar's Finest: The Brutalist
A Concrete Vision about the Future Oscar Winner and Past Architects
My love for movies is a given - I was born in February, also known as ‘movie season’. With the Oscars coming up, cinemas are packed with contenders, and I think we have a winner. No movie was more complete, or longer, than The Brutalist. Yet, as much as I admire it, I’m still unsure what level of ‘good’ it actually was. It’s a movie about an architect layered with hidden symbolism, one that made me curious.
For decades, architects have been both, visionaries and agents of power. From Haussman’s Paris to Robert Moses’ New York. Their resurgence in the cinema taps into something deeper. While Coppola’s Megalopolis also centers on an architect, The Brutalist is the film that truly delivers. If anything, Megalopolis is better understood by going back to its inspiration, which actually ís a good movie and book: The Fountainhead. So let’s see what hidden -or shown- messages we can find.
The Fountainhead, based on Ayn Rand´s utopian book, is at its core a philosophical manifesto about individualism. The film is set up in New York in the 20’s, where the Upper East side was still fully dressed in renaissance architecture and the main character, the young and ambitions architect Howard Roark, wants to introduce his modernistic buildings. Roark embodies Rand’s ideal of the independent thinker: an uncompromising visionary, a man who refuses to settle, believing that true creators must remain unshackled by public opinion. Roark’s preference for modern architecture reflects his rejection of traditional, ornate styles in favour of designs that emphasize functionality and simplicity. His beliefs mirror Rand’s ideology: the world belongs to those strong enough to impose their will upon it.
The Brutalist on the other hand, tells a different story. It´s main character played by Adrien Brody, László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant, represents a different kind of struggle – one of survival, identity, and resilience in a world that sees him as an outsider. Unlike Roark, who bulldozes through opposition, László navigates through systems of power. His struggle is shaped by historical trauma, migration, and the need to exist within capitalism rather than raging through it. If Roark represents a hyper-individualist, Tóth embodies the consequences of those power structures: the immigrant, the outsider, the one forced to fight for a space in a world built by and for others.
Brody himself made in an interview a comment that stuck with me. Reflecting on a scene set in the marble mountains he noted ‘the grandness is telling of the dangers looming as well’. That line could just as easily apply to Brutalism itself. The monumental buildings symbolize both vision and control, ambition and oppression. László understands that it has consequences beyond the architect’s intent.
You can almost sense that Brutalism had its own character in the movie, an essential part of the stories meaning. The film unfolds in the 1950s when – post-war – modernism evolved into Brutalism. It’s easy to think of it as just a design aesthetic. But in its time it was more of a political statement. Brutalist architecture grew out of Bauhaus ideals: practical, socially conscious architecture for the people. That’s exactly why Hitler saw it as a threat, shutting down the Bauhaus school before World War II. Not because it was ‘anti-German’—but because it was the wrong kind of German. The Weimar Republic’s modernist vision didn’t align with the Nazis’ desire to revive the grand, imperial styles of the Renaissance. Bauhaus with its emphasis on function and accessibility over spectacle, stood in direct opposition.
The Brutalist briefly refers to this when László recalls his school being shut down for being ‘anti-German’. This comes up in one of his conversations with Mr. van Buren, a wealthy patron who sees himself as an intellectual, and their conversations as ‘intellectual stimulating’, but doesn’t quite grasp what he’s talking about. These exchanges are some of the more amusing moments in the film—not because they’re truly ‘intellectual,’ but because they highlight the difference between those who create and those who simply admire creation.
This brings me to the following point. In both movies, architecture’s fate lies in the hands of the elite – despite its social and ideological roots. The Brutalist and The Fountainhead both feature wealthy patrons who ultimately make or break an architects vision. In The Fountainhead, media mogul Gail Wynand funds Howard Roark’s vision not necessarily because he believes in modernism, but because he sees himself reflected in Roark’s defiant genius. In The Brutalist, Van Buren is drawn to László’s work, but not because he shares his ideology—rather, because patronage of radical art and architecture is a statement of power, exclusivity, and belonging to something greater.
There’s the irony here: the modernism and later brutalism were born from the urgent need to rebuilt societies with minimal resources, yet its survival often depended on the very people it sought to move beyond. Post-war, most Brutalist buildings were built for the public good – libraries, theatres, churches, schools, social housing. Compared that to the privately funded buildings of today, where it’s about profit with limited access for the public. That’s what makes The Brutalist so compelling: László’s privately funded project still carries a public purpose, a quiet rebellion against the idea that architecture must serve wealth rather than people. The film’s message, if you look closely, isn’t just about style—it’s about the eternal tension between vision and power, and how architecture, at its best, can transcend even the intentions of those who finance it.
Brutalist buildings, with their commitments to public spaces and radical creative resistance, remind us that architecture can serve people over profit. These structures are more than concrete and steel—they are blueprints for the future. They tell us what was, and show us what could be.
The buildings are the visions of the past and future that last forever. It reminds us what was and shows us what can be at the same time. The resurgence of Brutalism and modernist aesthetics in cinema speaks to a broader cultural reckoning—urban alienation, globalization, and the politics of space.
In the end, while power and money seem to have the final say, in the long run, it’s the artists, the dreamers, the visionaries brave enough to shape how we see and experience the world, creating buildings that outlive their patrons. And right now, when things feel uncertain, we need that bravery more than ever.
See you at The Movies!
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Sources of Inspiration:
The Brutalist (2023), directed by Brady Corbet
Megalopolis (2024), directed by Francis Ford Coppola
The Fountainhead (1949), directed by King Vidor
Rand, A. (1943). The Fountainhead. Bobbs-Merrill.
Frankel, J.M. (2012). The Fountainhead of Modernity. Colgate Academic Review, Vol. 9, Art. 4.
Mould, O. (2017). Brutalism Redux: Relational Monumentality and the Urban Politics of Brutalist Architecture. Antipode, Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 701-720.
GQ. (2023, November 22). Adrien Brody Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ
Loved the movie (and the built-in break)