architecture

Were brutalist-style academic buildings really designed to thwart student riots and counterculture? Probably not, writes Slate's J. Bryan Lowder. The more likely reason: because they were cheap. University administrators were looking after the bottom line a little more than they were looking to quell student aspirations. Though, as any student who has taken classes in a cold, colorless, concrete brutalist building may tell you, they may have succeeded in doing that, too.