Brutal reckonings

IT’S DIFFICULT TO RECONCILE THE furore among architects over the depiction of architecture in The Brutalist. Brady Corbet’s otherwise award-winning three and-a-half-hour epic features László Tóth (Adrien Brody), an imaginary Hungarian-Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor, and his travails in post-war America to realise the American dream. Edwin Heathcote at the Financial Times sees undoubted epic brilliance, but a clichéd portrayal of the architect as tortured, solitary, male genius – “a battle to defend the purity and perfection of his vision and a refusal to compromise.” Architecture isn’t like that, says Heathcote. “It is about accommodating people; users and clients, neighbours and authorities.” Fair enough if the architect cliché included being actually tortured – Tóth was in Buchenwald – and being isolated by experiences few could comprehend. Philip Kennicott at The…