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Brutalism is a uniquely bad-looking part of architectural history - you can look anywhere in the world at any other point in history and you'll never find the same ugliness. My pet theory is that it's a style that was made to look good in black-and-white photographs at the expense of looking good in reality.

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Barbican is one of the best examples of Brutalism in the UK and I love it! Its far from Ugly. Its functional and interesting, far more so than the bland glass builds down the road in the city.

The Barbican is popular with a) architects b) people who endorse the political movement that built it. Even in your post you don't seem to be able to bring yourself to describe it positively in aesthetic terms - "functional" and "interesting" are usually euphemisms for ugly.

The fundamental bottom line is that hardly anyone likes grey, and - in real life rather than black-and-white photos - no amount of interesting texture makes up for that.

As a resident of the Barbican I'm in this minority that likes grey then. I love it and I'm neither a) or b), and I'd say the majority of the residents no longer match b)

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