brutalist italy: roberto conte & stefano perego capture concrete monuments at berlin show
the two photographers documented over 100 structures from the 1960s-80s, from cemeteries and sanctuaries to port buildings and residential complexes.
spotlighting italy’s brutalist heritage
Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego’s Brutalist Italy exhibition, following their publication of the same name, is now on view at the Italian Cultural Institute in Berlin. Over the last five years, the two photographers travelled over 20,000 kilometers across the Italian peninsula to document more than 100 Brutalist structures from the 1960s to the 1980s, from cemeteries and sanctuaries to port buildings and residential complexes.
Their work highlights how the architectural movement’s heritage in the country stands apart. Unlike the forward-looking Brutalism of other countries, Italian Brutalism acknowledges the past. As architectural historian Adrian Forty notes in the published text accompanying the exhibition, Italian architects embraced concrete as a medium that could embody both the past and the future, resisting the idea that modern materials should signify only progress.
captured by roberto conte and stefano perego
This interplay highlighted by Adrian Forty is evident in structures photographed by Roberto Conte (see more here) and Stefano Perogo (see more here), like the Monte Grisa Sanctuary in Trieste, a geometric mass perched above the Adriatic, evoking both a futuristic spacecraft and an ancient fortress. In Genoa, the infamous ‘Washing Machines’ residential blocks present a striking contradiction — at once utopian in scale and dystopian in their weathered, timeworn surfaces. Such buildings challenge the notion that Brutalism is purely an aesthetic of power or imposition.
The result of this field research is the book Brutalist Italy (FUEL publishing, 2023), featuring 146 photographs of over 100 Italian Brutalist buildings that invite a deeper appreciation of these structures as vital parts of Italy’s built heritage. The Berlin exhibition marks its first dedicated showcase.
project info:
name: Brutalist Italy
photographer: Roberto Conte | @ilcontephotography, and Stefano Perego
location: Italian Cultural Institute, Berlin, Germany
dates: 19th February — 30th April, 2025
