The article examines the process of the formation of brutalism in architecture as a stylistic community and its further penetration into the architectural system of the USSR. Brutalism in this work is considered not only as a stage in the development of modernist architecture, but also as a phenomenon that determines the emergence of a new cultural paradigm of postmodernism. This study pays special attention to the analysis of the architecture of Soviet modernism using the example of buildings in the city of Frunze (Kyrgyz SSR).