Studio Notes: Bruta Collection

Opening Image: Bank of Georgia Headquarters, Tbilisi, Ronan Bourellec for Issey Miyake, BRUTAL print,©️Harry Richards, The Geisel Library

Bruta Collection: Bruta Necklace & Savoye Ring in Blue Sapphire and Topaz.

In architecture and in jewelry, structure is what holds things together. It’s what carries the weight, catches the light, and quietly keeps its balance even as everything shifts around it. The Bruta Collection, inspired by Brutalist architecture, began with that idea: strength as something honest, and geometry as something you can feel rather than interpret.

Because this collection grew out of our love for this architectural movement, we wanted to let you in on why it resonates with us and how those ideas found their way into gold.

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Brutalism grew out of a world rebuilding after World War II, when cities needed housing and public buildings that were functional, affordable, and straightforward. Architects leaned into raw concrete partly out of necessity and partly out of principle. The French term béton brut, meaning raw concrete, became the movement’s anchor, but the material was never the whole story. The larger idea was to expose structure, to make the construction visible, to strip away anything unnecessary. It was a reaction to ornament and excess, and to anything that obscured how a building really worked. That clarity still resonates today. There’s a steadiness to buildings that show their bones.

Cité Radieuse (Unité d’Habitation) Designed by Le Corbusier, Marseille, France, 1945–1952

Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse, in Marseille is one of the earliest and most grounded expressions of these ideas. We love the use of raw concrete, modular grids, and deeply human proportions here. It’s a building with presence, but also a surprising warmth once you move through it. Brutalism’s reputation for coldness misses the point; the movement was always about people and the environments that support them, just rooted in a straightforward honesty rather than ornamentalism.

Barbican Estate Designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, London, United Kingdom, 1955–1976

The Barbican Estate in London carries that same sense of intention at a larger scale. Walking through the Barbican feels like moving through a sculptural landscape. Elevated walkways, heavy planes, concrete softened by plants and water make the entire complex an experience in rhythm and mass. It’s one of Brutalism’s purest expressions and also one of its most humane. You feel the weight, but you also feel the calm that comes with it, the reverence for nature.

Habitat 67 Designed by Moshe Safdie, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 1964–1967

Habitat 67 in Montréal is not technically Brutalism (we’re not art historians, after all), but inspirationally, it is 100% in the conversation. Its stackable modules, cast in concrete, extend the movement’s fascination with repetition, structural honesty, and new ways of living. It’s less severe than traditional Brutalism and more utopian, but that difference is part of its charm. The movement didn’t exist in a vacuum; it sparked experimentation, modular thinking, and new possibilities for scale and form.

Geisel Library (formerly Central Library), UC San Diego Designed by William L. Pereira & Associates, La Jolla, California, USA, 1965–1970

The Geisel Library in La Jolla is another one of those buildings that stops you mid-sentence. Its massive cantilevered shape creates a feeling of lift, almost as if the structure is pulling upward against its own weight. It’s raw and expressive but also strangely elegant, a reminder that rigor and imagination can coexist in a single gesture.

These atmospheres and ideas land lightly in gold. The Bruta Collection takes the architectural cues — the square modules, the clean planes, the way edges make shadows — and lets them soften. Gold gives structure a kind of warmth that concrete can’t. Rings become small architectures for the hand. Earrings create their own quiet framework around the face. The pieces hold their presence without insisting on it. They stand their ground and still feel effortless.

The influence of Brutalism is everywhere again, not in a nostalgic way but in a desire for honesty. In a culture full of noise, there’s something grounding about design that reveals how it’s made. That search for clarity is part of what shaped The Bruta Collection. These pieces aren’t literal translations of buildings. They’re reflections of values that resonate with us: structure that feels balanced, forms that carry intention and materials that speak for themselves.

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