Some buildings can be nice. But the real crime with brutalism was the stuff that got demolished to make room for it. Also, a lot of brutalist buildings have not aged well. Concrete gets ugly after a few decades.

And there's also the notion that a lot of brutalist architecture that isn't all that beautiful. There are some counter examples of course. But there are also plenty of really nasty urban areas that aren't exactly attracting hordes of tourists because it makes people feel miserable rather than amazed. Cheap construction, a vision that never panned out, etc.

I'm a big fan of the Bauhaus movement because it combines elements of what later became the brutalist movement but with a human perspective. There's something very optimistic about it and they thought hard about the human scale of things and how people would live in these buildings. A lot of that design still feels modern and progressive even a century later. Brutalism lost that human perspective.

I like them for two reasons:

1. They go really well with greenery. There is a book and social media account that covers this called Brutalist Plants. The contrast works exceptionally well and reminds me of nature-integrated architecture. I’d almost even say that brutalist buildings without the exterior greenery are incomplete.

2. They are buildings created with a visually coherent philosophy, even if we might disagree with it. That makes them more interesting than most contemporary buildings, which are basically just generic shells made for the smallest budget possible.

Not just futuristic, they’re designed with intention. That’s what I miss most of all about the current buildings.

Futuristic in a Bladerunner way, not a Star Trek way.

The kind of future where it always rains, it’s always nighttime, and people hide themselves away in fear.