An Espresso Maker Made in Le Corbusier’s Brutalist Architectural Style: Raw Concrete on the Outside, High-End Parts on the Inside

From the 1950s through the 1970s, Bru­tal­ist archi­tec­ture flour­ished in North Amer­i­ca and Europe (both West and East) and many coun­tries beyond. Made out of raw con­crete, Bru­tal­ist buildings–usually munic­i­pal build­ings, cam­pus­es, and hous­ing projects–have an almost unfin­ished look to them. The first and most famous exam­ple of this archi­tec­tur­al style is the Unité d’habi­ta­tion, the hous­ing com­plex built by Le Cor­busier in Mar­seille between 1947 and 1952.

Though Bru­tal­ism has since fall­en out of fash­ion, it might be poised for a come­back, espe­cial­ly if this new espres­so machine is any indi­ca­tion. After a suc­cess­ful Kick­starter cam­paign this sum­mer (rais­ing $145k), the Nor­we­gian-Cal­i­forn­ian design firm Mon­taag Prod­ucts is putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es on a bru­tal­ist espres­so mak­er.

They want­ed to design a machine made out of “com­plete­ly hon­est mate­ri­als.” Hence the raw con­crete. Inside the espres­so mak­er, how­ev­er, they’ve used mate­ri­als typ­i­cal­ly found inside $1300 Ital­ian machines, accord­ing to Food & Wine. You can pre-order the machine at Indiegogo for $799. It should be ready in March (or there­abouts).

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wake Up & Smell the Cof­fee: The New All-in-One Cof­fee-Mak­er/Alarm Clock is Final­ly Here!

Cof­fee Entre­pre­neur Rena­to Bialet­ti Gets Buried in the Espres­so Mak­er He Made Famous

Life and Death of an Espres­so Shot: Choose Your Sound­track

Physics & Caf­feine: Stop Motion Film Uses a Cup of Cof­fee to Explain Key Con­cepts in Physics