Guardian reporter Sean Thomas’s description of Le Corbusier’s Couvent de la Tourette is a notably unsympathetic one*, but not an entirely uncommon one.  Concrete is quite often dismissed as simply dull, bland, and grey.  And yet the sheer diversity of the concrete finish I’ve encountered during my travels has been thrilling and fascinating.

Up close these buildings are surprisingly nuanced – revealing of region, climate, culture, and age.  During my travels I’ve been gathering an inventory of global concrete in hopes of better understanding how this one material was employed, detailed and finished and now has weathered and aged in many different climates and cultures across the globe.  Featured is just a small sampling of six months worth.

*Read the full article recounting his overnight stay there, here.  Or don’t.  I’ll be going shortly and you can just wait for my account….