The Barbican

When people point to examples of bad brutalist architecture, I point them to the Barbican as a beautiful counter-example.

My appreciation of Brutalist architecture seems to be in direct proportion to the number of plants it incorporates.

A Brutalist building with zero plants looks like a totalitarian prison hellscape designed to destroy your soul before it destroys your body.

A Brutalist building surrounded by trees with every nook containing greenery and vines dangling down looks like some kind of idyllic Star Wars planet populated by fuzzy hobbit-like creatures.

I'm not sure why I find this effect so strong. Perhaps because flat gray concrete is aesthetically ambiguous. When paired with greenery, it looks like stone. In it's absence, it looks like industrial mechanism.

Agreed. I think greenery and water enhances most architectural styles, but Brutalism is the only one that absolutely _requires_ it. I wonder how differently the perception of the style would be if the Brutalist estates in the UK that became a byword for grimness and ugliness had been embowered and properly maintained by their housing groups and local councils.