The British architects Alison and Peter Smithson coined the term in
1953, from the French béton brut, or "raw concrete", a phrase used by
Le Corbusier to describe the poured board-marked concrete with which
he constructed many of his post-World War II buildings. The term
gained wide currency when the British architectural critic Reyner
Banham used it in the title of his 1966 book, The New Brutalism: Ethic
or Aesthetic?, to characterize a somewhat recently established cluster
of architectural approaches, particularly in Europe.[1]
The architectural style known as Brutalism and the architectural and
urban theory known as New Brutalism may be regarded as two
different movements, although the terms are often used
interchangeably. The New Brutalism of the British members of Team
10, Alison and Peter Smithson, is more related to the theoretical reform
of the CIAM (in architecture and urbanism) than to "béton brut".
Reyner Banham formulated this difference in the title of his book: "The
New Brutalism - Ethic or Aesthetic?