The Globe and Mail

Brutalism, which gets its name from the French "breton brut," meaning raw concrete, gets no respect, but it might be the most honest style in the city. Since its worldwide popularity crested during one of Toronto's biggest building booms (the 1960s and 1970s), we'd better learn to live with it. Perhaps, in time, we may even love it. On first glance, brutalism looks pretty brutal. Some of our most monolithic examples -- the University of Toronto's Robarts Library (designed by Mathers & Haldenby to resemble a peacock, but usually called a turkey), the Sheraton hotel across from City Hall, Ryerson's Jorgensen Hall and the Alan Brown Building at 77 Elm St. -- display their formwork-scarred concrete walls and mechanical elements with pride. That's the point, really, as brutalist buildings were the original "in-your-face" structures, unapologetically showing their construction warts and expressing their inner functions on the outside. Room shapes jutting from exterior walls, circulation via outdoor corridors and slit windows were just some hallmarks of the style.