brunswick center turns 50: ste murray captures structure’s evolution in modern london

ste murray ponders brunswick center in modern day london

In a new photo essay, architectural photographer Ste Murray pays tribute to Patrick Hodgkinson’s brutalist Brunswick Centre on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Reframing it in its context of contemporary London, the series reflects on the building’s complex relationship with modernity, capturing its evolution over the years in unfiltered honesty.

Meandering around the block as the ever-fizzing energy of central London circulates around it, the series captures scenes of the iconic structure surrounded by commuting pedestrians, whizzing scooters, bike couriers, and a variety of fashions. Capturing not only profile views of the complex, the photo essay also further depicts how the concrete structure frames views from within its terraced undercrofts, and captures how it becomes framed in glimpses of its own seasoned green forms.

Ste Murray pays tribute to Patrick Hodgkinson’s Brunswick Centre on its 50th anniversary | all images by Ste Murray

repositioning the brutalist structure in a modern context

‘Over the past few years I’ve been photographing modernist buildings in their 50th year. This half-century mark not only serves as a means of narrowing down the myriad of options, but is an appropriate timespan on which to reflect and re-present these mid-century icons to a contemporary audience,’ explains Ste Murray.

Like his other works, including the Space House in London and the John Hancock Center in Chicago, the Brunswick Center photo essay aims to pay tribute to the grade II listed structure while also contemplating it through a more critical lens of today. Placing the Brunswick Center firmly in the new, the photographer documents how the building continues to function in the modern world today by leaning into its encompassing urban context. Staying true to the structure’s integrity on its milestone birthday, Murray captures the center in all unfiltered honesty. ‘With a classic design like this, additions have been made over the years; traces of wear-and-tear form part of its story — it was important for me not to erase these blemishes of time,’ notes the photographer.

The series reflects on the building’s complex relationship with modernity

Ste Murray captures Brunswick’s center’s evolution over the years in unfiltered honesty

The concrete structure frames views from within its terraced undercrofts

The series reflects and re-presents a mid-century icon to a contemporary audience

The photo essay captures the center in all unfiltered honesty

‘it was important for me not to erase these blemishes of time’

1/3

 

 

 

project info:

name: Brunswick Centre
architecture: Patrick Hodgkinson

photographer: Ste Murray

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: ravail khan | designboom