Westrail Centre (today: Public Transport Centre)
Brand and Gus Ferguson had embraced Le Corbusier’s use of béton brut in their work on the Hale School Memorial Hall in 1961. A decade later Brand used it again to solve the problem of unifying such a large structure. To deflect the direct sunlight that beamed into the offices, he created brick sun fins on the eastern, western, and northern faces of the building to provide protection while allowing views to the surrounding landscape. Due to the orienta- tion of the building along a north-south axis and the seasonal change in the sun’s position, each section required a different treatment, which prescribed the exterior form. Excerpt from Ted Snell’s article in: SOS Brutalism: A Global Survey. Catalog DAM + Wüstenrot Foundation, Zurich (Park Books) 2017