Browse the most beautiful brutalist house exteriors. Discover design ideas and architectural inspiration to enhance your home’s exterior and façade as you build or remodel.
Brutalist architecture has come a long way since its peak in the late 1950s to 60s. Back then, institutional buildings and social housing projects projected a cold and austere nature that became associated with totalitarianism by the late 1970s and so fell out of favor. Now we’re seeing an exciting comeback of reinforced concrete and steel exteriors, cast in modular volumes to build great hulking triumphs and unique private residences.
Brutalism (coined from a play on the French béton brut,’ meaning ‘raw concrete’) is graphic, geometric, and toys with negative space, all of which make it incredibly appealing to the minimalist mindset of today. Below are the 50 beautiful brutalist house exteriors, upvote your favorites and let us know in the comments below.
01.
Architect: RP Arquitectos
Frame the setting. The negative space created at the center of this inspiring brutalist structure takes on the appearance of a serene blue skyscape, as though it were an art piece mounted on a raw concrete gallery wall.
02.
Visualizer: Anna Życka
Cut through with vivid color. A stunning red support column and coordinating red window frames electrify this cold concrete mass with hot bolts of creativity.
03.
Architect: Stemmer Rodrigues Arquitetura
Utilize elements of the natural landscape. A massive concrete volume weighs heavy on the upper floor of this brutalist home design, with one corner perfectly propped on natural rock. Exterior up lighters have been positioned around its base to exaggerate its effect.
04.
Architect: Andramatin
Concrete canopies. This Indonesian home design incorporates great concrete eaves that stretch as much as six meters wide. They have been designed in response to the high rain precipitation in Bandung and as shelter from direct sunlight.
05.
Architect: REIMS 502
The majesty of monolithic slabs. Solid stone slabs stacked one atop the other build a sense of impressive immoveable scale.
06.
Architect: RP Arquitectos
Jenga! Perpendicular blocks build the rising stories of this mesmerizing home. Skillfully toying with the weighty aesthetic.
07.
Architect: Steimle Architekten
Solid and succinct. This modern home exterior can’t easily be remodeled or changed, so it will remain as the architect intended. The feeling of permanence that Brutalism brings is beautiful in our fast-paced, quick-changing, and disposable modern culture.
08.
Architect: Alter Studio
Forge a fortress. The front entrance of this house looks like an impenetrable force. All windows are tucked around the side elevations to maintain a solid face.
09.
Visualizer: Luisö Ramos
Carve out an aperture. A dominating tower has been sliced through from top to bottom to release a beam of warm light to the exterior. The cleft exaggerates the linear nature of the architecture and creates a magnetizing draw to the facade.
10.
Visualizer: Luisö Ramos
One for the art lover. Cutaways in this concrete facade create a sculptural effect. The entire piece reads like a series of giant art pieces and even incorporates a massive plinth between the driveway and entry ramp.
11.
Architect: Sanjay Puri Architects
Break down the overall mass into smaller pieces. These modular elements disguise a modern mansion in built-up Lucknow city, Decorative screens based on traditional ‘chikan’ embroidery shade the interior from the sun while allowing cross-ventilation.
12.
Architect: Giuseppe Perugini
Photographer: Oliver Astrologo
Lofted geometrics. The cubes and spheres are elevated like a hulking treehouse on a tremendous concrete framework.
13.
Architect: Robertson Design
Regain natural balance. This brutalist home limits concrete to the lower floor of the exterior only. On top, walls are entirely clad with natural timber to balance cold and warmth, artificial and natural.
14.
Architect: Robertson Design
You can’t leave out cantilevered. There is something so very dangerously thrilling about seeing a gigantic block of concrete suspended over mid-air.
15.
Visualizer: Oscar Pastor
Is anyone for a dip? The linear nature of the brutalist house aesthetic lends itself perfectly to the accompaniment of a long sparkling swimming pool.
16.
Architect: Ludwig Godefroy
The perfect prop. A slender support leg props up one end of this home’s substantial concrete mass. A rounded cutout makes the enduring strength of the piece seem even less likely, and even more wondrous.
17.
Architect: Di Frenna Arquitectos
It is softened by nature. Despite the imposing scale of Casa Entreparotas, the two-story concrete structure is effectively feathered around its edges by soft natural vegetation.
18.
Architect: Querkopf Architekten
The power of invisibility. The ground floor of this fantastic building is made entirely of glass walls, which makes it disappear beneath its concrete crowning piece.
19.
Visualizer: Sergey Makhno Architects
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This terraced Japanese garden house, located in the suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, looks toward a garden view through a giant eye cut into its facade.
20.
Visualizer: Amey Kandalgaonkar
Reinterpret tradition. Traditional Chinese house characteristics, such as distinctive curved sloping rooflines, multiple courtyards, and an opaque wraparound wall, were reimagined to form this unique modernist house.
21.
Visualizer: Amey Kandalgaonkar
On the rocks. This breathtaking architectural concept house on a rock face is the stuff brutalist architects’ dreams are built of.
22.
Architect: FORM/Kouichi Kimura Architects
Step it up. The roofline of this formidable structure ascends on either side, like a giant’s imperial staircase.
23.
Architect: Architectural Studio Chado
Visualizer: Valentin Shkuro
Bricks make a solid addition to brutalist architecture. In this design, grey brickwork builds chunky columns under an extended canopy/first-floor terrace.
24.
Photographer: Shoot2Sell
Carry on with the curves. A love of Brutalist architecture doesn’t mean you must forgo curvaceous outlines. Rounded ‘turrets’ give this home a castle-like appearance. A winding pathway compliments the look.
25.
Visualizer: New Millennium Design
Precise balance. Glass volumes are set diagonally across from each other in the upper and lower stories, creating a visual balance of negative space around a concrete core.
26.
Architect: Spasm Design
Ribbed wall panels and slatted room dividers are all the rage in interiors. In this design, a similar texture trend is translated to the exterior using Dhrangadhra sandstone.
27.
Visualizer: Phạm Minh Quang
Another textured concept, this time with matching boundary walls and garden fences.
28.
Visualizer: Rafael Biasus
Once thought to be undesirably utilitarian, Brutalism now transcends cool minimalism.
29.
Architect: Pitsou Kedem
Brutalism ahoy! Portholes are cut out along the elongated face of this unique house exterior as though it were a beached boat.
30.
Architect: IDMM Architects
Have you got a penchant for pegboard walls? Well then, this hole-punched place might pique your interest. Massive perforations bore through dense concrete walls to lighten their look and let natural sunlight enter the volumes behind.
31.
Via: MR Arch
Straighten out the landscape. Thanks to the unrelenting determination of the linear architectural design, you almost don’t notice the severe slope of the natural terrain here.
32.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
This time, a design by Adam Spychała works along with the natural slope of the landscape rather than against it. Great sloping sides pull up from a dropped driveway to pause at the main floor before continuing into the roofline.
33.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
… Brutalism has landed, and it looks like a spaceship.
34.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
This one could be alien life, or it could be the home of a steampunk fan.
35.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
This build smacks of interplanetary colonization. Round windows look out upon the wild landscape.
36.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
The lookout towers. Round windows gather around the top of this leggy structure like a cubist meets the Brutalist interpretation of a spider’s head.
37.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
Geometric love. Circle cutouts and zigzagging V-beams form bold geo designs.
38.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
They are lording over the landscape. This spectacular angular modern house appears to push straight out of the forest floor, growing toward the sun with the rest of the lush canopy.
39.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
Jagged rocks meet jagged architecture.
40.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
Concrete concertinas. These linked diamond supports portray the illusion that the house can rise and fall at will– with the imagined sound effect of a massive accordion!
41.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
They were blowing out the boundaries. The walls around this house design are blown outward, as though a gift box has burst open to reveal the gifts inside.
42.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
Another skillfully executed sloping concept, with added greenery to further meld with the environment.
43.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
Mysterious and immovable, this modern masterpiece is tailored with precision. Mirror image double-layered walls mark a boundary at either end of the linear form and support a sharp roof terrace design. A carport is richly lined with wood panels contrasting the austere precast concrete.
44.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
Make easy transitions to outdoor staircases. Concrete is an easy choice when it comes to the fabrication of outdoor staircases. So, when your house is made of raw concrete, it’s smooth sailing to unite the two.
45.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
This blueprint would be high on our list if we had a building site on an abandoned beach.
46.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
Another seaside stunner. The exteriors of the brutalist house are excellent.
47.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
A cutaway terrace makes this a sun worshippers paradise…
48.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
… And this one too.
49.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
Like a beached mighty whale, the mouth of this building gapes open, with no windows to be seen.
50.
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
Cool and cropped. Cold concrete draws low lines into this flat plot, adding interest via a geometric and sloping side silhouette.
One Extra For Brutalist House Exteriors Lovers
Visualizer: Adam Spychała
One of the car lovers Brutalist house exteriors. When your concrete house looks like a futuristic car with four hexagonal ‘wheels,’ you know you’ve hit top fan status. We would have added in a Tesla Cyber Truck to complete the look.
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