'Cats of Brutalism' Goes Wild! - Page 2

Once the threesome set up the Cats of Brutalism Instagram page, their initial post starred Senay's own cat, Bailey, who, thanks to Photoshop, became super-sized while depicted swatting pigeons off the roof of the Earl W. Brydges Library. The idea caught on.

"Followers started sending pictures of their cats—and eventually that got a bit overwhelming, so we set up our website" and an entry form, Senay recalls.

"People have the option to submit pictures of their cats, their cats' names, request buildings, or [direct us to] social media pages they'd like us to tag them with.

"We post about buildings in universities or campuses, and people will comment that they used to go to that school, that library—so I think it's struck a chord."

They also try to use their platform to provide support when there are petitions for threatened buildings. "Even if we can have five to ten thousand people signing, we feel we've helped with that," she adds.

"A lot of people are excited to see an unknown architect or building from their town be posted. We get a lot of positive feedback, requests for posters, and things like that—and we've even had people make mugs and t-shirts."

Everyone who comes in contact with Cats of Brutalism's is instantly amused by the daily pairing of architecture and cats, but the fun really begins with the project's creators.

"We're the ones Photoshopping the cats," Senay says, "so when people send us pictures of their cats, it's funny to see their poses and expressions, and then framing it in the buildings—that makes us laugh too."

The group has also been delighted to see Cats of Brutalism grow so far beyond Buffalo and their initial goals. Now the rest of the world seems to be getting smitten too. "There's a lot of work in Japan that we've gotten requests from—also Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Macedonia, Russia—places like that," says Senay.

Asked about their future plans and what's in store for Cats of Brutalism, she says, "I think we're going to keep going with the Instagram page…We definitely want to be in contact with people. We are all second-year graduate students, and once we graduate we're all looking to get jobs."

"The irony of Cats of Brutalism," Senay adds, "is that the warm and fuzziness of cats juxtaposed with concrete actually helps to boost [the spirit of] each other. And we have a lot of cat lovers and architecture lovers following us."

For more of the wacky world of Cats of Brutalism, click here for their website. Click here for their Instagram page.