T he first time I noticed that post-war architecture – and brutalism in particular – was becoming trendy was on seeing the Trellick Tower depicted on a tea towel, in the mid-noughties. It seemed a ridiculous thing, this cosy household item printed with a rather stylish line illustration of the ‘Tower of Terror’. But, as it turned out, it was an inspired move. The designers had seen the emerging fashion for vintage furnishings of the 1950s and had made a connection with the architecture of the time. Festival-of-Britain-style Ercol bentwood chair designs were back in vogue and going for vast amounts on eBay but the buildings of the period were still somewhat frozen out, amid discussions on the merits – or not – of post-war design. In Thatcher’s Britain, trapped between the crashing fortunes of the post-war welfare state settlement and a populist derision at all things ‘modern’, brutalist architecture had been vulnerable to trigger-happy local politicians and landowners, determined to make either a quick buck or a fibreglass or faux brick mark on the landscape. But now brutalism was benefiting from a process of modernist rehabilitation, a trend achieved as much by designers of products, textiles and graphics as it was by writers, campaigners and historians. It’s an interesting lesson in the way that culture changes over time, even if the objects around us – ones we might hate one day and then covet the next – do not.

In 2011 I interviewed the designers of that Trellick Tower tea towel, Hannah Dipper and Robin Farquhar of homeware company People Will Always Need Plates, which they founded back in 2003. ‘It turns out, a lot of folk love a bit of concrete and are quite astute in their architectural tastes,’ said Dipper, remarking that Trellick Tower was by far the most popular image they had produced. It gave them the confidence to pursue their interest and, as she explained, ‘Whenever we see a concrete masterpiece that we love, we always try to imagine it as it looked in the mind of the architect when he sat at his drawing board… Or how it looked when brand new and spangly, before 30-plus years of rain and smog destroyed the exterior finishes.’

Alongside Trellick they have illustrated the Alton Estate in Roehampton, Denys Lasdun’s Keeling House, Trinity Square in Gateshead and, of course, the Barbican. I asked Hannah what the reaction to their designs had been from people who lived or worked in the places they illustrated: ‘Often they seem surprised by our choice, but mostly rather pleased. Many of the owners have purchased ware from us, and we’ve been lucky enough to get a good nose at some of their homes, in return for a free delivery! Trellick residents are particularly keen to share their memories of growing up there and seem utterly delighted that we love it.’

To some extent this appropriation of post-war architecture has helped fuel the gentrification of formerly working-class districts like the Park Hill flats in Sheffield or Denys Lasdun’s Keeling House in East London, a rundown masterpiece of social housing that famously sold for £1 to canny developers in 1999. More recently, ‘Mid-century modern’ fairs, vintage shops and online small business platforms such as Etsy have fed an appetite for the post-war optimism of modern design to middle-class consumers, keen to bring some space-age glamour to interiors made beige, bare and bland by a decade of advice from TV property experts.

Today you can buy brutalist maps, badges, Christmas cards, cushions, fabric, illustrations, tote bags, T-shirts, magazines, postcards, mugs, tea towels, plates and bus-pass wallets, in a frenzy of merchandising that rivals the Moomins or Disney’s Frozen. Now that it’s a popular topic, there are entire sections on brutalism in many bookshops. A rash of books – yes, well spotted, including this one – have celebrated the buildings that once outraged a generation. There is black and white photography to emphasize the monumental forms and rough textures, and colour to bring a more nostalgic, observational edge. There are books to make cut-out models of paper engineered slab blocks alongside historical treatises, lighthearted travelogues, biographies and monographs. Meanwhile, the buildings themselves are being gentrified, reclad, neglected or demolished, their fate beyond the control of the individual consumer, who can look after a mug of Brasília’s cathedral or a card of Alexandra Road in the snow but, sadly, cannot stop the destruction of Durham University’s beautiful Dunelm House or the social cleansing of Park Hill. A more practical measure might be joining organisations such as the Twentieth Century Society, who campaign to protect them.

I suspect there are now more brutalist fans than there are brutalist homes. For most, a pillowcase of Boston City Hall or a paper model of Kaliningrad’s House of Soviets has to suffice. But brutalism seen through a lens – be it books, photos, products or social media – is no substitute for experiencing the real thing. The mass, the volume, your place in all that space, and the touch, smell and sound of a building – all these will live with you afterwards in indefinable ways. Just as seeing the sun at a certain level in the sky might remind you of the start of the school term or the inevitable end of summer, so the echoes of shoes on a concrete floor or the shadows on a staircase from a skylight can take you right back to moments in places you have known and loved.