The history of modern architecture and house design is about celebrating the beauty of raw materials and intertwining function and form. A lot of this comes from the utilisation of beton brut, a look you can effectively replicate using expertly applied microcement on walls.
Much like Venetian plaster, microcement is a cement powder that can be applied as rather thin layers to give a particularly stylish look. In the case of microcement, it creates a distinct industrial concrete look without the need to make the entire wall with it.
Besides the environmental benefits of avoiding the massive carbon cost of using Portland cement to make concrete, microcement is also far lighter, far more versatile and significantly less expensive than using conventional cement and concrete purely aesthetically.
It can be used to cover most common building materials including resin, plywood, plasterboard and even existing surfaces such as tile, although more complex needs require expert installation.
It has become an exceptionally stylish way to give homes an industrial chic look reminiscent of the original beton brut movement, but without the heavy building materials that shaped that style.
What Is Beton Brut?
Deriving from the French term for “raw concrete”, beton brut was a fundamental part of the brutalism movement of architecture, defined by functional, utopian design and a celebration of raw materials.
The term comes from the architect Le Corbusier, one of the most influential building designers of his generation and a man who widely shaped the industrial styles that are popular today.
The term itself was coined in 1952 whilst Le Corbusier was constructing the Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles, France, a construction concept defined as complete living cities that relied heavily on raw concrete not only as a structural component but also as a design aesthetic.
The Housing Unit was exceptionally influential, creating an entire design movement that has since been loved and loathed in equal measure, but the concept of celebrating building materials as they exist has led to an entire modernist movement in architecture.
The key to beton brut is that it was not trying in any way to hide that it was concrete. It was not polished to provide a stone or marble-like finish, and it very often retained its somewhat rough texture as a key aspect of its design.
This aspect managed to endure even as the architectural world largely moved away from brutalism as a whole and the functionalist designs Le Corbusier prized above all others became somewhat less restrained as form was allowed to seep back into designs.
It was a key part of the structural expressionism movement, where the construction methods of the concrete were deliberately retained and highlighted, giving the synthetic material a form of grainwork that it took until the rise of microcement to recreate.
Industrial interior and exterior design is a celebration of materials, and microcement is a way to allow anyone to do so without the restrictions that come with using said materials as a primary structural material, which can be the case with concrete due to its weight.
