Architecture Editors Debate Crisis Formalism and Newer Brutalism in Recent Publications
In 2025, a conversation about modern architectural forms was ignited by two publications: Flash Art's Volume 002, named Crisis Formalism and edited by Nile Greenberg and Michael Abel Deng, alongside Log 64: Toward a Newer Brutalism, which was guest edited by Emmett Zeifman. Crisis Formalism promotes non-optical forms to tackle polycrisis, whereas Newer Brutalism revisits the material construction principles of the 1950s. In an interview with AN's Jack Murphy, Greenberg discusses inscrutable forces and references Hollow Architecture, while Zeifman points to the climate crisis and construction economics, citing Reyner Banham. Deng contrasts Crisis Formalism with indexical optimism, and both editors engage in a critique of each other's views on architectural representation, exploring the conflict between abstraction and material reality.
Key facts
- Crisis Formalism, edited by Nile Greenberg and Michael Abel Deng, was published in Flash Art Volume 002 last spring.
- Log 64: Toward a Newer Brutalism, guest edited by Emmett Zeifman, was released over the summer of 2025.
- The publications share contributors but differ on topics of legibility and approach.
- Crisis Formalism focuses on architecture absorbing polycrisis through illegible, non-optical forms.
- Newer Brutalism revisits 1950s New Brutalism to propose a theory of architecture expressing its material construction.
- Editors discussed the work in an interview with AN's editor-in-chief Jack Murphy.
- Zeifman organized a related exhibition at the GSD in fall 2024 featuring firms like b+, Lacaton & Vassal, and OMA.
- Greenberg and Abel Deng disagree on the role of legibility within Crisis Formalism.
Entities
Artists
- Nile Greenberg
- Michael Abel Deng
- Emmett Zeifman
- Jack Murphy
- Patrick Schumacher
- Bjarke Ingels
- Jeanne Gang
- Reyner Banham
- Alison Smithson
- Peter Smithson
- Mark Linder
- Wes Jones
- Andrew Zago
- Mark Anderson
- Arno Brandlhuber
- Le Corbusier
- Rem Koolhaas
Institutions
- Flash Art
- ANY
- Log
- AN
- GSD
- SCI-Arc
- MoMA
- OMA
- b+
- de Vylder Vinck and Jo Taillieu
- Lacaton & Vassal
- Abalos & Herreros
- Ensamble
- Office of Political Innovation
- Rotor
- OFFICE KGDVS
- Dogma
Locations
- United States
- Boston