{"id":38666,"date":"2025-11-27T13:00:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T21:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/?p=38666&preview=true&preview_id=38666"},"modified":"2025-11-27T12:37:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T20:37:14","slug":"the-big-brutal-breakfast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/2025\/11\/27\/the-big-brutal-breakfast\/","title":{"rendered":"The Big Brutal Breakfast"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

Architecture and Design Film Festival 2025<\/em> hits Toronto, Nov. 12-15, Mumbai, Jan. 8-11, Chicago, Feb. 18-21. It features The Big Brutal Quiz<\/em>, a competition on Brutalist architecture in film, developed by Jord den Hollander, host Jo\u00ebl Le\u00f3n Danis. Here the fictional Brutalist Broadcasting Corporation1<\/sup><\/em> airs its unreal postmatch interview2<\/sup> with real-life Vancouver champion, award-winning design architect Derek DeLand.

BBC Sport<\/strong>: You won The Big Brutal Quiz<\/em> at ADFF Vancouver. As architect of the win, how does it feel to be reigning heavyweight champions of Brutalist architecture?<\/p>\r\n

Derek DeLand<\/strong>: No pain no Berghain. It was brutal but our team never threw in the trowel. We don\u2019t blow-up like Antonioni. It\u2019s the Barbican not the Barbican\u2019t.<\/p>\r\n

BBC Sport<\/strong>: After a strong start in Across the Pond<\/em>, you faced mass resistance in Living Brutal<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n

DeLand<\/strong>: First half, Kubrick tells Kahn to use the arch tactic, that gets us into negative space. Second half, we pass the b\u00e9ton and get Carter who digs deep, builds a foundation, lays it on thick, and gives \u2018em no daylight. A monumentally monolithic moment, another Kubrick in the wall. 

<\/p>\r\n

BBC Sport<\/strong>: You gained momentum in Civic Duty<\/em> and Concrete<\/em> sections. What went through your minds?<\/p>\r\n

DeLand<\/strong>: The future’s not set in stone, and winning was our density, We seized the moment and made our form work. If we started to slump, if tensile stress set in, we relied on our anchors for reinforcement, stayed hydrated, and looked for aggregate gains. You\u2019ve gotta IM Pei to play, comme Corb \u00e0 Marseille<\/em>. We’ve faced heavy odds from heavy mods, come through heavy winds for heavy wins. Now like Alison Smithson, it’s all good in the robin hood.

<\/p>\r\n

BBC Sport<\/strong>: What’s the International reaction to your brutal success?<\/p>\r\n

DeLand<\/strong>: Canadian PM Mark Carney got on the delirious new dialectical dial-up mid-century modem with the nation\u2019s station’s commendations.3 <\/sup>Ex PM Justin Trudeau, in rendezvous with an astronaut, could not be reached for comment,4<\/sup> and Canada’s Minister of Housing and Infrastructure Gregor Robertson said our architectural vision has made the planet happy.5<\/sup>  Gavin Newsom, 48th President of the United States,6<\/sup> is elated that architecture’s now in the hands of more enlightened leadership. UK PM Keir Starmer faxed us an honorary Order of Canada7<\/sup> in exchange for his cornered Knight of the Order of the Garter, though the knight’s still trying to castle, and only a king can castle. <\/p>\r\n


BBC Sport<\/strong>: Any other comments on this Brutalist championship?<\/p>\r\n

DeLand<\/strong>: Special thanks to my team DGK.8<\/sup> Experimental media\/sound artist Kim Glennie gave us foundational leverage, you cantilever alone for a minute. Architectural photographer Martin Knowles is a sure shot, he can\u2019t, he won\u2019t, and he don\u2019t stop. Kudos to ADFF leaders Anne Pearson, Leah Mallen, and Kyle Bergman, and to the BBC Sport1<\/sup> mass media monolith for this bang-on on-site site-cast broad-cast.2<\/sup>  <\/p>\r\n


BBC Sport<\/strong>: How will you celebrate the win?<\/p>\r\n

DeLand<\/strong>: First, a naked lunch at John Andrews and David Cronenberg’s satisfyingly thick “Canadian Academy of Erotic Enquiry” at University of Toronto.9<\/sup> Then to London’s AA with Rem and Bjarke10<\/sup> to complete my postdoctoral thesis, the retroactive manifesto “HE HEAVY, HE MY BROTHER: a Preverbal Poststructuralist Postdoc on Precariously Prolonged Priapic Prestressed Posttensioned Primeval Prefab”.11<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\r\n

BBC Sport<\/strong>: Er wot?<\/p>\r\n

DeLand<\/strong>: A polished prestige project preliminarily picked by particular pollsters and prudent pundits for the Pritzker.12<\/sup><\/p>\r\n

BBC Sport<\/strong>: What do you say to teams you crushed like gravel?<\/p>\r\n

DeLand<\/strong>: Give it 28 days. Defeat is raw, there\u2019s no cure but time.<\/p>\r\n

***<\/p>\r\n