Brutalism
Etymology
Not from "brutal" but from the French "béton brut" (raw concrete), a phrase associated with Le Corbusier. The critic Reyner Banham and architects Alison and Peter Smithson coined "New Brutalism" in 1950s Britain — though the accidental echo of "brutal" has shadowed the style’s reputation ever since.
noun · /BROO-tuh-liz-uhm/
A mid-20th-century architectural style of massive, blocky forms in raw exposed concrete.
What it names
The divisive style behind so many civic buildings and campuses — heavy, unadorned, honest about its materials — and helps you tell a deliberate aesthetic from mere ugliness.
Example
The library is pure brutalism — a cliff of grey concrete with the plank marks of its molds still showing.
Related idea
Brutalism celebrates heavy raw concrete and exposed structure; minimalism strips a design down to essentials but tends toward smooth, refined, often light surfaces. Both reject ornament, yet one feels massive and rough, the other spare and clean.