How ‘The Brutalist’ built architect László Tóth — inside and out

CNN — In a dark corner of a mansion in mid-century Pennsylvania, Erzsébet, a Hungarian immigrant rebuilding her life in America, pores over the contents of a desk. Video Ad Feedback 'The Brutalist': Adrien Brody on the spiritual quest at the heart of Brady Corbet's architecture epic 02:23 - Source: CNN Director Brady Corbet’s film “The Brutalist,” a vast and imposing portrait of fictional architect László Tóth, a Holocaust survivor starting over in the United States, has already achieved near-universal acclaim. “He also went through one of the most horrible experiences a human could go through,” she said of the Holocaust, adding researching photographs and schematics of concentration camps “was the hardest part for me.” Both Tóth’s personal and the professional spheres collide in Becker’s design for the institute, which takes on deep symbolic value. Lol Crawley/A24 The institute, a monolithic concrete structure perched atop a hill, needed to be radical, befitting a designer who can bluntly tell his patron, “You were not prepared for what you saw — it’s understandable.” Becker said she drew on the work of Hungarian-German modernist Marcel Breuer and contemporary Japanese architect Tadao Ando, among others, for her creation, which is only shown in snatches, preserving its mystique while keeping costs down. “All of that really went into my design of the building, even though I knew it would never be in the movie.” A ‘spiritual quest’ The institute becomes the embodiment of Tóth’s struggle, his enduring love for his wife, and a reckoning with his trauma.