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Following the international events related to the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War era, Southwest Oklahoma saw the significant expansion of military installations and associated local economies between 1946 and 1989. As Oklahoma communities were impacted by the new wave of both military and civilians personnel moving to the military installations located stateside in the common effort to defend the nation against conventional and nuclear attacks during the Cold War Era, the necessity to reorganize, adapt, and convert existing facilities, as well as to provide new solutions to the new residential and recreational demands, became a constant priority of the United States Department of Defense and local municipalities. These efforts culminated in the commencement of Late Modern facilities conveying a renewed ethical approach focused on human needs, forcing a transformation of the previously accepted aesthetical conventions. It soon appeared clear that architecture was to assume a new role in society, thus challenging the established pre-World Way II views; and that this new perception would require for architectural and urban proposals the employment of peculiar physical characteristics and stylistic forms, which came to typify the Brutalist Movement and how urban environments were envisioned in civic design. Within the described contextual framework, the construction of military buildings, housing developments, and support facilities via large-scale plans has been traditionally connoted as an attempt at social utopia, interpreting the forma mentis of the war and internalizing the common stigmas of the working Americans. This paper aims at reflecting on the meaning and pragmatic reasons behind the development of the Brutalist Movement—with its own history, ideology, and sentiments—in Southwest Oklahoma; as well as at analyzing its noteworthy social and forward-thinking qualities, which resulted in the apparent withdrawal of most of the utopic and lustrous traits of the architecture of the Modern Movement.

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The Surge of Brutalist Architecture in Southwestern Oklahoma During the Cold War Era

  • 会议论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Selena Bagnara Milan

摘要

Following the international events related to the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War era, Southwest Oklahoma saw the significant expansion of military installations and associated local economies between 1946 and 1989. As Oklahoma communities were impacted by the new wave of both military and civilians personnel moving to the military installations located stateside in the common effort to defend the nation against conventional and nuclear attacks during the Cold War Era, the necessity to reorganize, adapt, and convert existing facilities, as well as to provide new solutions to the new residential and recreational demands, became a constant priority of the United States Department of Defense and local municipalities. These efforts culminated in the commencement of Late Modern facilities conveying a renewed ethical approach focused on human needs, forcing a transformation of the previously accepted aesthetical conventions. It soon appeared clear that architecture was to assume a new role in society, thus challenging the established pre-World Way II views; and that this new perception would require for architectural and urban proposals the employment of peculiar physical characteristics and stylistic forms, which came to typify the Brutalist Movement and how urban environments were envisioned in civic design. Within the described contextual framework, the construction of military buildings, housing developments, and support facilities via large-scale plans has been traditionally connoted as an attempt at social utopia, interpreting the forma mentis of the war and internalizing the common stigmas of the working Americans. This paper aims at reflecting on the meaning and pragmatic reasons behind the development of the Brutalist Movement—with its own history, ideology, and sentiments—in Southwest Oklahoma; as well as at analyzing its noteworthy social and forward-thinking qualities, which resulted in the apparent withdrawal of most of the utopic and lustrous traits of the architecture of the Modern Movement.