By Graham K. Rogers

The design of the buildings in a city helps define the people that live and work there. Architecture has evolved over many centuries: sometimes taking advantage of the ideas and aspirations of the time, such as in the magnificent cathedrals of the Middle Ages; and in the much later sky-scraping tower blocks made possible by advances in steel and concrete technologies. Economics also plays a part and, especially after World War Two in Europe, there was a period of austerity that was reflected in construction of the time.

The iPad is not just a reading device that allows access to major sources of news, or to the wares of the major book publishers. It is also a lightweight and portable device that allows users to view high quality images. With the comparative ease in which apps can be created, it is relatively inexpensive these days for someone with specific interests to create an app that displays content that would normally only interest a small group. With the wider range of distribution, content that would have previously been rejected by a publisher because of limited interest, can now be shared with far more users.

I earlier found an example of this was the app called, Ampersands: one man's look at the underrated character that used to be taught in some British schools as the 27th letter of the alphabet. Now, I have found an app that celebrates a type of architecture that I saw at close hand in Britain as I was growing up, but age seems to have mellowed: Brutalist Architecture.

In the free app called Concrete, which I found when looking for apps related to the Apple pages on Bechtel's use of the iPad, Chris Guy has provided 29 images of some of the best (or most prominent) examples of what is referred to as Brutalist Architecture. There is a useful background item on Wikipedia, with some more examples: note especially Habitat 67 in Montreal and the Buffalo City Court building.

Many of the examples displayed in the Concrete app, which was developed by FP Creative, are in Britain. After a brief introductory screen, there is a display of 29 thumbnail images. We may either tap on a specific image to view that or press the Arrow at bottom right to view all images, one by one.

The app only works in landscape mode. This does not show some of the images in the best way as several have been taken in portrait mode, so appear small in the app. Each image is displayed with a white strip at the bottom of the screen giving the location and bare details of the construction.

Towards the right are controls for the app: a user may return to the app Home screen, or to the thumbnails page. To the right, icons allow an image to be exported via email or Twitter. An image may also be saved in the photo library. An icon marked Wiki opens Safari and links to the Wikipedia page related to the location. Tapping the image makes the white band disappear: the image can be viewed in full.

The content will not appeal to everyone. But that is one of the beauties of such apps as this on the iPad: the medium allows limited interest content to be distributed more easily; and some may be intrigued. Without such easy access, they might have missed viewing such a collection.

It is the context in which the buildings (and other constructions) are viewed that makes this app more worthwhile. Viewed alone, perhaps from a car or a bus, some of these buildings are drab. Parts of architectural London in the 1960s had an aura of drabness. Seen as a collection, the strength of the architectural movement does make more sense, and in some of the images we can see the beginnings of an evolution. This may be valuable to students of architecture or other related disciplines. There is also a historical/social context here.

The overall impression of parts (say) of London, was of greyness; yet the application of colour, as may be seen in some of the images, along with the textures from the concrete mouldings, has a cumulative effect. I lived in such a tower block on the edge of London and when new the buildings looked exciting; I also remember concrete where the wood grain could be seen on the panels.

As some of the comments in the app make clear, certain of the buildings displayed are now listed (protected), while a couple are now gone. Others, despite the classification of "Brutalist" are simply stunning.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.