Concrete's long, unfashionable comeback

By the 1990s, brutalism had become architectural shorthand for civic failure: cold, grey, and blamed — often unfairly — for whatever social problems happened to surround the buildings themselves.

The concrete never really went away, though. It resurfaced in gallery-friendly residential projects, described in careful new language: honest materials, structural clarity, a rejection of ornament for its own sake.

Strip away the rebrand and the underlying commitments are strikingly similar to the originals — exposed structure, unapologetic mass, a refusal to disguise what a building is actually made of.