For its often blocky and raw concrete forms, Brutalist architecture has a polarizing reputation. That said, many monumental structures in the United States have been made in its stark vision, from Bostons 1968 City Hall by Kallmann McKinnell & Wood to New York Citys 1966 Breuer Building by Marcel Breuer, soon to be a Sothebys headquarters, to Washington, DCs 1974 Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden by Gordon Bunshaft. Now, director Brady Corbets The Brutalist, in theaters December 20, offers a chance to see a softer side of the divisive architectural styleand of the architects who designed with it.Though fictional, the film follows a heartbreakingly familiar story for many immigrant modernist architects: Having survived the Nazi concentration camps, celebrated Jewish architect Lszl Toth (Adrien Brody) escapes persecution in postwar Europe to begin his life and career again in Philadelphia. Armed with his Bauhaus schooling and an oeuvre of modern theater, synagogue, and restoration projects in his native Austria-Hungary, he first designs tubular steel furniture for his cousins shop before being tapped to craft an elegant library with vertical louver cabinetry for a wealthy customer. But his most ambitious commissionand in the end, his most importantis an 850,000-square-foot community center in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with an extensive program that includes an auditorium, gym, and, ironically, a Christian chapel.One of Toths first commissions in the US is a modernist library with louvered panels to hide the bookshelves. Those cabinets in the library were the hardest thing to do in the movie because they had to look really beautifulwithin a [mostly] white set, reveals production designer Judy Becker. The films set decoration was done by Patricia Cuccia and Mercdesz Nagyvradi.Photo: Courtesy of A24To achieve it all, Toth sells his concept of a hilltop Brutalist monument to his client Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr. (Guy Pearce) and the city planning department via a trick of light. A void in the form carves the sunlight filtering through into the shape of a cross onto the altar inside, recalling real-life projects like Tadao Andos Church of the Light (1999) or lvaro Sizas St. Ovdio Chapel (2001). A deeper layer of poetry is later revealed: The size of Toths building is the same as the concentration camp where he was imprisoned, its small rooms meant to represent cells.For his community center commission, Toth crafted a concrete Brutalist design for its lack of architectural precedents.Photo: Courtesy of A24Toth designs bent tubular steel furniture as his first project in the US. Becker reveals that his inspirations ranged from the Bauhaus to American folding beach chairs, as seen in a deleted scene from the film.Photo: Bence SzemereyMost PopularArchitecture + DesignAD100 ArchitectsBy The Editors of ADCulture + Lifestyle11 Beautiful Island Hotels That Are the Height of LuxuryBy Kathryn RomeynArchitecture + DesignThis 700-Square-Foot Miami Loft Offers a Reinterpretation of Beachy DesignBy Linne HalpernDerived from European modernist origins, Brutalist architecture developed in the United Kingdom in the 1950s, as the region, like Toth, recovered from the trauma of World War II. His unadorned masterpiece, like many such Brutalist structures, is defined by the use of exposed concrete and crafted with structural needs rather than decorative elements in mind. In the years after World War II, when building materials like wood and metal were scarce, concrete was abundant, cheap, and durable. Creative architects tapped into this economical style to imagine structures that were enormous, expressive, and impressive, but they also were imbued with a social spirit of equality, intended to represent democratic values through their material honesty.What [Brutalism] represented, at least for Lszl [Toth], and possibly for other refugees who came here and started designing in that style, is a sort of letting go of any architectural references to the past and moving toward the future, says The Brutalists production designer Judy Becker, who made all the modern architectureand furniturein the film, drawing on the work of diverse talents like Ando, Breuer, Louis Kahn, and James Turrell. Because, as Brady [Corbet] has pointed out, fascist architecture really was an homage to historical architecture.The community centers architecture uses light as a main design element. Becker built two large-scale models that were filmed to represent the building, with some details, like its cistern, shot on location in Hungary.Photo: Courtesy of A24Most PopularArchitecture + DesignAD100 ArchitectsBy The Editors of ADCulture + Lifestyle11 Beautiful Island Hotels That Are the Height of LuxuryBy Kathryn RomeynArchitecture + DesignThis 700-Square-Foot Miami Loft Offers a Reinterpretation of Beachy DesignBy Linne HalpernUnbeknownst to his client, Toth created a building that quietly yet powerfully symbolized the trauma caused by his persecution. Real-life Brutalism, too, aimed for a deeper meaningone that is perhaps underappreciated today in the face of its large concrete volumes. Preservationists are fighting to save and reuse certain embattled Brutalist structures while others call for demolition altogether.My buildings were designed to endure erosion of frivolity, Toth explains to Van Buren before he is commissioned for his career-defining project in Pennsylvania. When it comes to existing Brutalist architecture, maybe we should heed this warning. Whatever ones opinion on their aesthetic, these buildings have lessons to teach us.