alt Hacker NewsI get the aesthetic of concrete. It is very appealing visually. At the same time brutalism is not functional. In a way, it is anti-human. One can compare it with functional architecture that takes the person into account and will see that visuals only might not be enough for people living or working or studying there.
All of this depends, of course, on what we consider brutalist, but I think we can agree the purest brutalist constructions are not thinking of the human experience.
In a way, it is like marvelling at a torture device, like an iron maiden. It might be visually interesting but I think most people wont love it for good reasons, not out of laziness.
edit: typos
The metro is pure brutalist, through-and-through, and it's utterly amazing. But you're inhabiting the space; there's little-to-no contrast with foreign elements; and the nature of the structure means everything about brutalism, artistically and functionally, could be exercised to its best effect.
I will say that I've always disliked most of the above ground platforms, for the same reasons I dislike brutalist architecture generally. The underground platforms transport you to its carefully constructed world. The above ground platforms don't and probably never could have the same effect.
As time goes on the metro has been slowly adulterated, but it's still amazing.