Standing squat on the corner of 16th and Eye Streets, the Third Church of Christ Scientist remains one of the more interesting buildings in the District that won’t be standing there much longer. The octagonal complex is a mere 42 years old and supports an arm of bells that juts out from its 16th street side. Its plain cement exterior indicates a style called Brutalist (from the French,béton brut, or “raw concrete”), popular in the ’50s and ’60s, and that evolved from post-war modernist architecture. This is a designation it shares with at least a dozen other Washington, DC structures (eg. Metro stations, the HUD building in Southwest, the Department of Energy building), Boston’s City Hall, the Chicago corn cob towers and some architecture in the UK, to name a few. One of the style’s huge fans was architectural giant Le Corbusier. Like other Brutalist structures, the concrete of the church is decaying, and would be costly to revamp (an unforeseen future for these bold buildings at the time of their construction). After much legal action, the church will repurpose its grounds, rezoning them for commercial use to make way for an office building and retail outlets. Many other Brutalist buildings are similarly mired in controversy. Prior to the Christ Scientist congregation’s building, on the site was the home of Supreme Court Justice Horace A. Gray.