Read the following passage carefully.
Emerging in the aftermath of the Second World War, Brutalist architecture is frequently misunderstood by contemporary critics as an aesthetic manifestation of bureaucratic hostility. This characterization, however, obscures the inherently utopian social objectives that originally animated the movement. Pioneered by architects such as Alison and Peter Smithson, British Brutalism was conceived not as an assault on the senses, but as an egalitarian rejection of the superficial elegance of pre-war bourgeois architecture. By employing unplastered concrete (béton brut) and deliberately exposing a building’s structural and functional elements, the Brutalists sought to cultivate an ethos of architectural honesty and social transparency.
Central to the Smithsons’ philosophy was the concept of the "street in the sky," an attempt to vertically recreate the close-knit community dynamics of traditional working-class terraced housing within high-rise estates. They theorized that wide, elevated walkways would foster spontaneous social interaction, serving as egalitarian public spaces immune to the privatization creeping into street-level urban environments.
Yet, the realization of these projects often diverged dramatically from their conceptual blueprints. Economic constraints typically forced local municipal councils to substitute the Smithsons' specified high-grade concrete with cheaper, more porous alternatives, leading to rapid aesthetic degradation in Britain’s damp climate. Furthermore, the elevated walkways, envisioned as vibrant communal arteries, frequently became isolated corridors prone to vandalism, largely because they lacked the natural surveillance afforded by traditional street-level windows and storefronts. While modern commentators tend to attribute the failure of these estates to a fundamental flaw in the Brutalist aesthetic itself, the architects’ original writings reveal a movement driven by an acute, albeit perhaps naive, sensitivity to working-class social structures.
The passage provides the most support for which one of the following inferences regarding the "elevated walkways"?
- Their vulnerability to vandalism stemmed from the absence of the incidental observation naturally provided by conventional street architecture.Answer
- BThey were originally envisioned as isolated corridors that would protect working-class residents from the privatization creeping into street-level environments.
- CContemporary critics argue that these structures failed primarily because local municipal councils substituted the architects' specified materials with cheaper alternatives.
- DThey would have successfully fostered spontaneous social interaction if they had been built with the high-grade concrete originally specified by the Smithsons.
- EThey were ultimately rejected by working-class residents because the unplastered concrete clashed with the residents' preference for pre-war bourgeois elegance.