Transparent’s new speaker is an epic audio homage to brutalist architecture

Swedish Audio brand Transparent has a broad audio canvas, manufacturing everything from the compact Light Speaker to the Wallpaper* Design Award-winning Transparent Turntable. Now the Stockholm-based company has eschewed its trademark transparency for something a lot more solid.

This is the new Brutalist Speaker, described as ‘a monument of sound and design’. Paying explicit homage to the UK’s most stubborn and abstract brutalist architecture of the 1950s and 1960s, the speaker system is available in black or white, stands nearly 60cm tall and weighs in at a suitably concrete 12kg. The aluminium casing (made from 70 per cent post-consumer recycled material) is an artful collision of geometric forms, with two 3-inch tweeters expressed in extruded cylinders.

The speaker brings to mind the willfully abstract forms of Victor Pasmore's Apollo Pavilion in Peterlee, County Durham, or the architecture of Denys Lasdun. Brutalism might have had its moment in architecture, but the aesthetic continues to intrigue and entrance. ‘It is exciting to bring this legendary architectural style into people’s homes, and to bring the worlds of architecture and design closer together,’ says Per Brickstad, Transparent’s creative director.

All this would be moot if the speaker didn’t also deliver an excellent acoustic experience. The form factor enables a large interior acoustic volume, which gives the bass space to move. With the tweeters placed at 90 degrees to each other, filling rooms with sound is not a problem.

The Brutalist Speaker is best placed in a corner, so the design makes the most of acoustic reflections to fill up a room. ‘At Transparent, we believe that audio objects can be both aesthetically striking, technically advanced but yet simple to use, and this speaker exemplifies that vision,’ Brickstad continues. ‘The Brutalist Speaker is more than just a speaker, it's a sound monument that invites the listener to a grand adventure.’

Equipped with Bluetooth 5.2 and the ability to connect to all the key streaming services (Airplay2, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect and Amazon Music), the Brutalist Speaker can also be integrated with other components or a multi-room system. Brickstad co-founded Transparent in 2012 with Martin Willers and Magnus Wiberg. The trio continues to push the boundaries of speaker form factors, creating sculptural forms that look and sound incredible.

Brutalist Speaker, Transparent, $4,000 / €3,800 / £3,200, Transpa.rent, @Transpa.rent